A/N 1: Hey guys! Again, I thank all of you for your kind words for this story, I'm so glad you're enjoying it! Slightly shorter chapter this time, sometimes you pack as much as you can in, and nothing more works. Once again, certain sections of dialogue aren't mine. All credit and my thanks go to the writers of 'The Limey'.

I hope you enjoy!

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Chapter 5

"I know you're going to be mad, but it worked."

Castle bounded into the bullpen like he'd never been away, and all was right with the world. Alexis trailed behind him, holding back, like she wasn't sure she was welcome.

They'd obviously come straight from Wyndham's shindig; they were still in their formal clothes.

"It was the only thing we could think of, Detective Beckett," Alexis said. "I know I'm only 18, and I'm positive I shouldn't have been involved at all, but like Dad said, it worked."

Beckett was so happy to see Castle back to himself that she didn't even think about a teenager doing her job for her at first, though she was a little disappointed at the girl's formality even though they were at the precinct. She hoped she could be 'Kate' to the girl someday soon, but if she and Castle didn't work things out, it wouldn't ever happen.

Kate also didn't see the "WTF" look Colin Hunt gave Ryan and Esposito, or the two of them taking him off to the breakroom to explain who Castle was – to her personally and to the team.

"So, what happened?" she asked, turning to Castle, but still including Alexis.

"I taught my daughter criminal activity when she was 12."

Kate blinked.

"What now?"

"Dad," Alexis sighed, rolling her eyes. She turned her attention to the detective. "He taught me how to pick pockets."

Beckett raised a brow and sat back in her chair, folding her arms.

"It was for research purposes," Castle said proudly. "I also taught her to pick locks."

"You do realize you're talking to a cop?" Kate teased with a small grin.

"Well, this time I hope it paid off for the good guys," Alexis interrupted the banter, taking a small object wrapped in a cloth napkin from her clutch.

"What's this?"

Kate took the item and unwrapped it.

"Oh, his card case!" she exclaimed. "I saw him with this, but couldn't figure out how to get to it without coming on to him more than I'd like, undercover or not. How did you manage to get it out of his inner pocket?"

Alexis made a face.

"Fortunately for me, he put it in an outside pocket. It was creepy enough dancing with him at all without having to touch him more than I had to."

"Yeah, he was a bit of a lech wasn't he?

"You're telling me!" The teenager shuddered in disgust.

Kate opened a drawer in her desk for an evidence bag, put the case and napkin into it, wrote the pertinent information on the tag and motioned a uniform over to her desk.

"Take this down to the lab for prints," she said to the man. "Have them put a rush on it if you can."

The officer nodded, took the bag and headed for the elevator.

Kate turned back to the two Castles and put on her best Beckett voice.

"Officially, I have to get after you two for horning in on an undercover operation."

Rick and Alexis looked at each other, a little confused. They'd helped, hadn't they?

"Especially you, Castle, for bringing Alexis into this. Wyndham may not have been dangerous in a crowd of people like that – even though he was creepy as hell – but still."

"Beckett..." Castle began.

"Unofficially," she interrupted with a raised finger and a smile. Her voice softened. "While I am a little put out – mostly with myself – that you had to do my job for me, thank you. Even the best laid plans go haywire. It's not the first time an op has gone wonky but you two really saved the day." She looked down at her desk, then looked back up at the two. "Even though it was a coincidence, I'm so glad you were there, and I'm amazed you were able to get Wyndham's card case."

"Was it us that screwed up the operation in the first place?" Alexis asked. "Like, when I called you by name in the restroom?"

"Well, it wouldn't have helped if anyone else had been in there," Kate answered honestly. "But fortunately there wasn't, so you're off the hook there." She smiled at the teenager. "If your dad had seen me first, I suppose he may have done a double-take that could have outed me. Like I told you earlier, he knew I was on an op, but didn't know where."

Alexis smiled in relief, and said, "Well, Dad has been known to do double-takes when women are around."

"You do know I'm right here," Castle said in mock offense, letting go of the fact that he did see Beckett and didn't give her away.

Kate grinned but otherwise ignored him, nodding at Alexis.

"True," she continued. "And I know he's experienced enough to school himself if he did see me," she looked at Rick, seemingly reading his mind. "And I know you'd never out me on purpose, but no," she sighed. "The problem wasn't you guys. It was that our intel was wrong."

"Sir Alfred Heath?" Castle broke in again.

Kate nodded once more.

"Yep. And Colin just came out of Gates' office after making a phone call to his colleagues in England trying to find out what the hell went wrong."

Castle looked around.

"Where is the good Briton?" he asked.

Kate looked around in surprise, and for the first time noticed the three men were gone.

Then she noticed Ryan in the break room pouring coffee. She pointed to the door.

"They must be explaining to Colin who you are to me," she replied.

Two sets of eyes grew wide as they stared at each other.

"Er...Um... the team, who you are to the team," Kate stammered. It was too much. Too much truth. Too soon and in the wrong place, and possibly in front of the wrong person. Kate knew Alexis wasn't too happy with her right now, even with the girl's slight softening towards her tonight. The boys wouldn't tell Colin more than that would they? She watched uncertainty mixed with anger come back into the writer's eyes.

Would he even believe her when she did tell him just how much he meant to her?

They must have been staring just a little too long, because Alexis cleared her throat.

Castle and Beckett broke eye contact and noticed that the other men had returned. Ryan and Esposito were grinning, and was that a slightly disappointed look on Hunt's face?

"Are we interrupting something?" Esposito smirked.

Kate narrowed her eyes, and threw a paperclip at the Hispanic detective.

"Shut up, Javi."

XXXXXX

In the breakroom…

"Who the hell is that?" Colin Hunt asked as soon as the door to the breakroom shut behind Ryan. "And was that a teenage girl with him?"

"That's Beckett's partner…" Ryan began.

"Partner?" Colin asked incredulously. "He's no cop," he scoffed. "I may not know exactly how US policing works, but I have eyes and there's no way… and the girl? And if he is Kate's partner, where's he been? And why wasn't I told he was going to be backup if the operation went balls up?"

Esposito and Ryan looked at each other while Hunt ranted, understanding that there might be a little more than just professional interest behind the tirade. Their suspicion was vindicated with Colin's next words.

"Wait…Are they together? Personally? Is-is that what you meant by partner?"

"No, they're not together that way," replied Esposito calmly. "But they want to be."

"Whether they admit it or not," put in Ryan.

The two detectives watched Colin deflate. Yep, definitely a personal interest there.

"There's been something weird going on between them recently," Ryan went on. "Which I guess is why Castle hasn't been around lately."

"And no," Esposito continued, "Castle's not a cop, he's a writer. He's been following Beckett around for four years for his books and he's been surprisingly helpful to the team."

"And the girl? Surely she's not a 'partner'.

"Alexis is Castle's daughter," Ryan answered. "And as far as I know…" he glanced at Esposito who was on the same page and nodded in agreement. "Castle wasn't a part of this op at all. He certainly wouldn't have involved his daughter if he was."

"And," Esposito put in. "The op did go 'balls up' as you put it, bro. It sounds like Castle and his daughter were able to salvage something from it. I say we find out what that was and take the win."

Colin sighed.

"You're right," he conceded. "I don't know that I'm happy you're right, but what can I say?"

He moved to the breakroom door.

"Let's find out what they learned."

The three walked up to Beckett's desk to discover the partners staring at each other intently.

Alexis cleared her throat and Castle and Kate broke contact.

"Are we interrupting something?" Esposito asked with a smirk.

He dodged a paperclip as Kate replied.

"Shut up, Javi."

XXXXXX

It was hours later. Castle and Alexis had long since gone home to change – not to mention avoiding paperwork on Castle's part. He'd given Kate a meaningful look as he and his daughter left the precinct once they'd given their statements. The meaning was clear – We will talk soon. No more hiding, Beckett.

She'd simply looked him in the eye and nodded. She was nervous, but she was ready for the discussion. However it went.

She was beginning to feel a little optimistic. While Castle hadn't really come back to the precinct for this case, serendipity put him in the right place at the right time, and he helped. And maybe more importantly, he was happy to help. True, Kate knew he would never have jeopardized the operation purposely, but he and Alexis easily could have ignored her at the consulate. And if it had still gone south – which it probably would have based on their faulty intel – he wouldn't have known enough about it to help salvage it, or if she was being a hundred percent honest with herself, cared.

Anger was still there. On his part and hers. Kate's anger had dissipated somewhat, especially after she discovered her monumental fuck-up. She understood why Rick was so angry, but if he'd just stayed and let her explain instead of letting it fester, this whole thing could have been resolved sooner.

Of course, once again being a hundred percent honest with herself, she had to ask herself if she would have passed it off as a lie again. Fudging the truth with a suspect. Castle knew she did that from time to time, though it wasn't usually so big. She sighed, disgusted with herself. How could she be so confident in her professional life, but so timid in the personal? Yes, she'd let Will Sorenson in, but that had been so long ago. Why couldn't she let go of her fear and grab hold of the relationship she really wanted? Why was she so scared?

She did know the answer to that one. This was real. This relationship had the potential to last... And after Will left – even though that was ultimately mutual – she'd shied away from real, though she'd tried with Josh.

A somewhat similar question might be why couldn't she let go of her mother's case? She had told Dr. Burke she was ready to let it go, but she hadn't, not completely. She felt she'd been doing well, maybe about fifty feet from the rabbit hole, making it easier to ignore, but her confession to Bobby Lopez brought a lot of it back. She was back on the edge of that hole, and she wasn't sure what it would be to push her back over. It was a crutch and an addiction, and she was finally realizing it. But knowing it still didn't help her leave it behind.

Esposito broke into her thoughts.

"Yo, print's not a match."

Kate and Hunt spoke at the same time.

"What?"

"CSU ran the fingerprints off the card case, compared them to the print Lanie pulled off of Naomi's body. It wasn't a match."

"No, that's not possible," Kate argued. "Run it again."

Espo sighed.

"Ryan already did that three times," he replied. "Wyndham's not our killer."

"He's behind this, I know it," Hunt said. "It's why Naomi left us his photograph."

"Well maybe he hired somebody to do his dirty work for him." Kate mentioned.

"Like one of his security men," replied Hunt.

Okay this was weird, building theory with someone other than Castle. Kate shook her head to clear it.

"Can you get Scotland Yard to run background checks on the security staff?" she asked.

Ryan broke in.

"Or a better path might be to look into this mysterious number that Naomi wrote on the back of that photo we found in the locker."

"Do we have any idea what that could be?" Colin asked.

"It looks like it could be a code of some kind," said Ryan. "W4-1949-898. What's the significance?"

"Tech's working on it, but nothing yet," replied Esposito.

Kate's phone buzzed. She looked at the text and paled a little as she read it.

"You okay, Beckett?" Ryan asked, too observant for Kate's own good.

"Um... Yeah," she replied distractedly, still looking at her phone. She typed a few words, paused, and looked up without hitting send.

"We're not going to get anything more on the number or code or whatever it is tonight. Fresh eyes Monday morning since none of us are on call tomorrow?" she asked.

Kate noticed Esposito not quite surreptitiously checking his watch, and rolled her eyes.

"I'm entitled to leave on time or a little early while we're waiting on something, Esposito," she told him. She checked her own watch. "Not that I'm leaving early anyway. It's already Sunday morning. It's nearly 2AM, we should've been off at midnight."

The detective gave her a cheeky grin.

"But you usually don't leave if there's even half a chance something might come in," he said. "On call or off."

Kate gave him one of her "looks" usually reserved for Castle. (Even though he was right, and they both knew it.) "If you guys want to hang around twiddling your thumbs, be my guest." She stood. "Or maybe catch up on last week's paperwork." She packed up her things – including a stack of notes from the case – and moved toward the elevator. None of them needed to know what was going on with the writer. "Good luck getting Gates to approve the overtime. See you Monday guys."

She walked off amidst a flurry of goodbyes.

XXXXXX

Once inside the elevator, she looked at her phone again.

I know the case isn't finished, but helping at the party made me realize we need to resolve this sooner rather than later. 'We' seem to still be there, which I'm not sure I understand since I'm still angry. No, wait. I didn't want to discuss this on the phone, I certainly don't want to discuss it by text. It's after midnight on Sunday morning. So, tonight or tomorrow? What time should I be at your place? No more waiting, Beckett.

– C

Kate had begun with:

I'm glad you think 'we're' still there. I noticed that too, it was so easy falling in with you.

No, wait. That 'falling in with you' sounded like falling in love with you. An accurate statement to be sure, but not one she wanted to say by text the first time. Especially with this unresolved issue encompassing them. Kate backspaced that part out.

The doors opened to the parking garage. Beckett stepped out and moved toward her motorcycle. Straddling it she looked back at her phone.

She so wanted to text "tomorrow" to him, but was that stalling? Yeah, that was stalling. She looked at her watch again and bit her lip. It was 2:15 AM now, so "today" would work. She needed some sleep, but if she rushed later, she'd still have time to put everything together. She began typing.

I'm glad you think 'we're' still there. I want 'us' to still be there. I want 'us'. So, since it's now after 2:00 on Sunday morning, and I'm not on call, how about tonight, 7:30? I'll make my mom's famous lasagna, if you bring the wine.

Was that too much? The "I want 'us'"? Was even asking him to bring wine too much? Kate thought maybe it was, so once again, she backspaced.

I won't say I'm looking forward to this confrontation, nope, again, an accurate statement, but she too didn't want to start the fight by text, so she backspaced again and changed the wording. I'm not – and at the same time I am looking forward to this conversation, and I agree it's time to pull out all the stops. I hope I'll see you tonight.

She hit send before she could rethink – or overthink – her words again. Mentally running through the ingredients she had on hand for the lasagna, she headed home to sleep for a few hours, she'd head to the store when the sun came up.

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A/N 2: Thoughts on this one?