"Do you need anything?" Castle asks. A fresh pair of panties probably wouldn't hurt. The swift glare she fires at him earns a strained attempt not to smile in reply along with the man's palms lofted in self-defense. "I'm being serious. This plaza is the last chance to do any shopping before we arrive. So if you need any last minute items..."

"Hmm." Beckett slows and shifts lanes when the way is clear. "I don't think so. We can stop and duck inside a moment though, see if inspiration strikes. There must be something you need, come to think of it. You didn't bring anything."

"I keep clothes at the house." He smooths the thighs of his slacks. "Sorry to quaff any hopes of rampant nudity."

"I'm hiding my disappointment," she mutters, though in her mind... "Uh, what about groceries?"

"It's taken care of." She eyes him askance and he shrugs. "One of my friends here runs a housekeeping service. Genie Autry. Genevieve, rather, but call her that at your own risk." The width of his eyes suggests having made the attempt at least once before. "It's no shortcut to her good side, trust me. Genie's looked after the place ever since I bought it. If I give her enough notice of when I'm visiting, and she has time, she restocks the refrigerator for me too."

"That's nice."

"She's amazing, yeah. That's not part of her usual service."

Beckett gives a luxuriating eye roll. "Aso. She's got a soft spot for you, huh?" That sounded more subtle in her head.

"She better," the other grumbles. "We've known each other since we were toddlers. Her husband John and I have been friends for a long time too. I was a groomsman at their wedding, and they asked me to be their daughter's godfather." There is obvious pride tethered to those bits of history, a quality of it he usually only displays when discussing his own daughter. Beckett smiles and mentally crosses the housekeeper off a list of potential concerns. "You'll be meeting him tomorrow at some point. John, I mean. He's a Sergeant in charge of the East Hampton Town police precinct in Montauk."

"Oh? Are you planning some mischief that might get us in trouble with the man?" She bats her sable eyelashes at him and flashes the breadth of a winning smile at his blank-faced look of surprise.

Castle's lips slowly spread into a broad curve. "My, but that sounds like fun." It diminishes some as the point he was aiming at comes back to target. "Uh, but no, sadly that's not what I meant." He moistens his lips in a blip of prevarication as they pull into a parking space outside of a drug store. "He's one of the people who knows the details of, ah, what I'm going to be telling you. His father, Frank, was a detective with the EHTPD back then. It was his case."

The last has her sitting upright in her seat. "Whoa, wait. Your history here involves a case?"

"Oh yes." He turns while stripping off his seatbelt and cants his head indicatively. "Let's shop."

"Let's talk," she rebuts flatly. "No, don't start squirming. I'm not asking you to dive all in, but you can't throw that out there and not expect me to ask. What kind of case are we talking about?" Please don't say—

"Murder," her companion replies evenly. He leans slightly towards her in an invasion of space that might have been welcomed if that expression weren't so absent of anything familiar. There's a challenge in his body language. It isn't even close to something playful. "Did you really need to ask?"

"H-hoped for a different answer," she replies quietly, unsettled. By Castle. That simply doesn't happen.

The author tilts his head somewhat and a faint smile slowly emerges. It reaches his eyes. "That's sweet of you to say," he remarks at length. "I wish I had another one to give. But come on, that's for later." He rises from the car after saying so. A cool breath of spring flows into the void before he closes the door behind him.

It takes Beckett a few minutes to recover her senses. She snags her purse from behind the seat and slips out with a press of the key fob to lock up behind them. The mid-fifties temperature doesn't make for an especially cold night, but an inner chill coupled with casual buttoning of her shirt and rolled up sleeves invites a quiver of protest. The brightness of the store narrows those hazel orbs after the pair enter. It's been a long, dark ride thus far. And poised to grow darker still. She tries not to focus on that, but passes the clerk on duty without fully registering the young man's greeting. More on autopilot, the detective trails after her shadow down one of the aisles, their usual roles of follow-the-leader turned in an about-face.

She almost collides into his back when he stops. Castle turns and blinks at their proximity. "Hi."

Beckett takes a step back, shakes her head. "Sorry."

Castle indicates the shelf at her left with a little tip of his chin. "You're all set here?" He's pointing out the array of women's shaving foam. It takes a moment for her to fully grasp the implications, and another still to let go of an ache at her core elicited by him trying to keep this trip light and fun for her. Kate plays along with a squint that mutely demands better behavior. His smile has returned though, and it is not dissuaded in the least. "Is that a yes?"

"It's an indication that someone is skating on some mighty thin ice."

"Okay, okay. It doesn't hurt to ask."

"It could."

"What a surly woman." He turns to keep walking. "Surly, but apparently smooth-shaven. Good. To. know." He stops again with nothing more than a sideways glance at a pegboard rack full of condoms.

Wow. Damn it, her cheeks heat up a little. "Someone's feeling optimistic," she observes with convincing aplomb.

"I always try to be a glass half full kind of guy. How about you? Feeling optimistic?"

Mmm, you betcha. It would take a mental health-care professional armed with a comprehensive power-point presentation to make sense of the sheer rapidity with which they've gone from very rarely even touching one another to making jokes steeped in the foreshadowing of their impending sex life. Kate certainly can't explain it, except to say that it's been coming for a long, long time. Now that their path to one another is clear... "Hmm," she replies with her own turn at teasing. "I feel...like a good scout should be prepared for even the remotest of eventualities. Isn't that the motto?"

Castle keeps walking down the aisle, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "I wouldn't know. I was never a scout." Maybe not, but she can think of plenty he is, including one cocky sonofabitch.

Kate eyes the condom packages askance and yanks free a box of small sized, glow-in-the-dark ones. She palms them and tucks her left hand at her side to conceal their presence. She who laughs last... The joke is on him either way. She's been using contraceptives to manage the severity of her periods since her late teens. With a few longer strides she catches up near the end of the row. It terminates near the pharmacy desk where a few people are sitting. Castle turns left, which takes them to several standing coolers at the back of the store.

She smiles when he pauses before them. "Beer and frozen pizza, huh? That's almost embarrassingly up my alley. Just so long as we're not eating and drinking out of dinnerware that's more than fifty times the monetary value of our meal. I eschew the extremes of hypocrisy wherever and whenever I can."

Castle laughs aloud, a rich texture of sound even while being modulated. "You eschew, hrm?"

"I do, I do. You too?"

Her partner's shoulders quiver silently even as he shakes his head and glances at the watch face on his wrist. "Genie said she was going to leave dinner in the oven for us when she left around ten. It's only five after right now, so we should be good there. It's grilled shrimp scampi and lobster stew."

"She cooks for you too? You really are spoiled."

"I wish. No, she cooked for you, which happily works to my benefit."

"For me?" She grinned. "I'm digging this gal already."

"I told you she's amazing."

"Seriously, that's really nice. We should do something to say thank you while we're here."

"Maybe we can invite them over for lunch on Sunday."

"Yes! I can cook."

"Mm, I remember. I'll call them tomorrow and see if they're available. They'll probably bring their kids too if so. They have a four year old girl, Ella, and a boy, Max, who'll be turning three in a month. They're the coolest little people."

"Aw." He turns to look at her in surprise, and Beckett swats his shoulder. "Shush, you. I like kids. Especially when they're just visiting," she stipulates discreetly close to his ear, and her companion chuckles deeply. "What's the hold up here then? What do you need?"

"You're the hold up. We're looking at the ice cream, not pizza or beer. Pick a flavor already." He reaches in after chiding her and pulls out a pint of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Yum. She points out another can't-miss: chocolate chip cookie dough. "Classic," he affirms with a nod. The author also grabs a squeeze bottle of chocolate syrup and a can of whipped cream.

"I'll partake," she reports dubiously, "but hear me, Castle: I will not be wearing either of those."

"Oh, you want some too? I can grab more."

Beckett shoos her free hand at his contrived display of concern and follows him to the front check-out. He unloads their yummies and they watch the cashier ring everything up. "Oops, almost forgot." She drops the condoms onto the counter. "Those too, please." The young man assisting them does what anyone would under the circumstances when he performs an automatic glance to their suspiciously slippery desserts and then back to the rubbers. When he notes the size of them the kid looks at Castle with a smug little smirk in place upon his freckled face.

But the author, rarely caught unarmed in a battles of wits with her, simply shrugs his broad shoulders a touch. "I'm all about giving in moderation." It is kinda funny. The kid laughs. Beckett smiles, but the fact that her companion doesn't reveal a compulsion to correct the assumption of size on the table, or counter as it were, is more interesting than amusing. It takes self-control to resist that urge with only a moment available between thought and action. It takes confidence to actually play along. The former is a quality worthy of note. The latter is just plain sexy.

"Not bad," Castle concedes as they exit, grinning aside at her.

She smirks and bumps his hip with hers.

On the road again, they pass through the last traffic light standing between them and their destination. Gradually, the cars ahead peel off onto varying side streets. Within the space of a few miles they're alone again in the darkness and the lights of The End are disappearing behind them. All except for a principle one that is; the beam of Montauk Point Light is visible ahead cutting a revolving swath through the night.

"We're almost there. In about a mile the road will bend left. You can see the house from there on the right. After the way straightens out again there'll be a paved lane within a hundred yards or so."

It soon appears as described. The highway they've been following is cut into a decently-sized hill. A fair way down its slope stands the massive beach house. It's beautiful. A couple inside lights are visible through what she guesses are expansive bay windows. The feeble glow of an exterior lamp shines at the middle as well as at either end. Beyond it all, radiance from the waxing gibbous moon lies upon the mighty Atlantic in sprawling splendor, but nearer to shore that glimmering influence wanes from the imposed angle until all detail is obscured. With the landscape likewise nighttime black, the house calls to mind a massive ship that has been moored in a cape of brooding shadow. It is beautiful, but hauntingly so.

"Jesus, Castle..." Beckett murmurs, and turns onto a wide, private road in good repair. The slope proves less extreme than it appears. The grounds encompass at least five acres, maybe six. The wooded west, which they're approaching from, seems to be the lesser. She already knows from a picture Castle showed her on his cell that the east goes all the way down to the sands of a private beach. Largely open lawn unfolds to the south. A few isolated stands of trees are visible here and there. The northern sprawl hosts an L-shaped leg of the home, a two-story, four-car garage with the same wood-shingled exterior as the rest of the place. "Should I pull in there," she asks uncertainly, "or out front?"

"Out front is fine. I'll put this in the garage later."

She circles the wide open roundness of the driveway and comes to a stop. It feels good to get out and stretch her limbs while knowing the relief isn't temporary like before. The wind is offshore, ferrying scents of the surrounding forest. Kate circles around to the front of the Bentley more by dead reckoning, her gaze fixed to the imposing edifice of the structure before them. Castle appears at her right peripheral.

"Is it too much?" he worries aloud.

"Huh? No, it's gorgeous," Kate breathes. Her right hand lifts to rest upon his forearm while they linger. With a tilt of her head she remarks, "The symmetry of its profile is interesting."

"Is it? How so?"

Beckett considers a moment silently, combs a few wind-blown strands of hair from her cheek. "We all know how you thrive amidst chaos. This design is redolent of order, stability even. I guess that tracks though, huh? If my math is right you bought this a year before Alexis was born, before you married Meredith. By appearances alone," she looks to him again, "one might guess you had intended to settle down before either of them actually came into the picture."

Her companion's stern exterior gives nothing away. "Not a bad piece of profiling, detective."

She clears her throat and lowers her hand to her side, wondering if saying anything was a mistake. "Two stories?" she asks, trying a different course of conversation.

"Technically three. It has a finished lower level I had turned into a library a few years ago. Don't let any of the local realtors hear you call it a basement. They'll flip out." The man's smirk makes a reappearance along with a lightly disparaging flip of those blue eyes towards the starry sky. "Anyway, there are five bedrooms including the master suite on the first floor. The rest are on the second. Each has an ensuite bath, so you won't have to explore if you wake in the night."

"Phew. What's the square footage on something like this?"

"A little over ten thousand."

"Holy shit. And what did it...ah, no. Bah. Sorry."

"What, the price? It's okay to ask. We've exchanged far more personal details, don't you think?" She smiles back at him uncertainly. "It was just under twenty-five."

"Million?" Beckett squawks, hazel orbs wide. "Of course million," she answers immediately afterward, and strokes a hand over her hair with a huff of an exhale. "Fuck me."

Castle glances at her in straight-faced surprise with a slight lift at the peak of his eyebrows. "Is that an order?"

Silent mirth quivers through her before the woman slaps a hand against his left side. It lingers upon him again while they continue taking the place in. "You must be used to this kind of gawking by now. Just gimme one more minute."

"Take your time. It's nice to see it through fresh eyes." Castle turns and moves to the trunk of the car. "Pop this for me?" Beckett does so using the key fob, and joins him back there while frowning privately at his reply. She only brought two bags. One is a carry-on sized silver colored suitcase and the other a little red pouch for her make-up and such. She snags them both and he closes the trunk after. "It's never been easy finding time to get away," he explains. "I don't think Meredith and I made it out here together more than three or four times, and with Gina it was only somewhat more frequent. It's been remodeled...I don't know. At least twice since either has visited."

Beckett shakes her head. "I'm well aware of your reputation beyond the realm of matrimony, Castle. I know there have been other women. It's not something you need to hide from me on behalf of a misguided attempt at conciliation." It's not something he needs to mention in detail either though. She makes the point and hopes he drops it.

"Why would I?" he returns, frowning with what seems like genuine confusion. "Listen, uh, I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at, but I had my reasons for constructing the reputation I carry. I can't claim no one's feelings were hurt throughout that process, or that I'm proud of what we built, but I can say that I've seldom acted in a fashion that left me feeling truly ashamed of myself. As for this place...it's always been a refuge from all of that, a getaway in more than one sense of the term. It's been for family, as you've already surmised." He pauses to scratch pensively at his jawline. "If bringing you here renders that fact suspect... I would suggest you're underestimating how much I appreciate what we've accomplished together over this past year, and what you've come to mean to me personally." His features dim noticeably. "Or perhaps I've overestimated what that has meant to you in turn."

"No," Kate inserts immediately. "That's—no, damn it."

"It's no strike against you," he clarifies with matching haste. "It's my assumption, not a criticism."

Beckett takes a breath and shifts restlessly where they stand. "I think I've made it pretty clear what this means to me."

"I thought so too," he replies, still frowning somewhat. She doesn't miss the lean on past tense.

"Look, this is just... It's my misunderstanding." Beckett set her suitcase down to reach for his hand and, bless him, her companion doesn't shy away. "You had me going with that facade of yours too, okay? Sometimes I look at you and I see the guy on page six. Other times I don't. It's difficult to trust which one is real. We've known each other for, what—a year? A great year," she assures quickly, "but as busy as we've been throughout all of that time...how much do we really know about one another? You see where I'm coming from here, don't you? It's not doubt that makes it so easy to picture girls gone wild around your pool or along the beach. Wow. It's really not. It's plain ol' ignorance." She blinks at him.

"I understand. Of course I do. That's why we're here: for answers."

Kate sighs long and quietly in relief. "That's good."

He eases back a pace from her with his head tilted some, and she watches his expression fade away. "Is it?" She doesn't know precisely what he means, or what to say to that. When the lack of reply drags out far enough he shakes his head and unearths a small smile. "I suppose we'll see. Come on, let's go inside."


A/N: Sorry for the delay, folks. I can't even tell you how many times I've written and scrapped this chapter. Why? I dunno. Madness in one form or another seems likely. I'm still not entirely satisfied, but for now it must suffice in touching on the issues I've demanded of it.

Also... If you're looking for something special to fill the gaps of waiting for this or other stories you're reading, I highly recommend trying out One Quarter, by Perspex13 if you haven't already. It's one I discovered last night. It's not a completed story either, yet, but each chapter is nicely long and satisfying in its own right.