a.n. Thanks to all who have left a review. Sorry for not updating yesterday. We all knew the daily posting wouldn't last forever. This chapter jumps back to being case focused with some relationship stuff thrown in just like the show.

Disclaimer: Do not own Castle.

xxxx

Chapter Seventeen

Previously…

"Beckett." She listened as the dispatcher alerted her to a body drop. She memorized the address before turning back to the two people standing in the kitchen.

"We've got a body, babe. I'm going to jump in the shower."

He walked up to her and gave her a deep kiss. Pulling back she smiled and ran her hand over his cheek before making her way to the bathroom to start her day, a spring in her step every step of the way. She was so very happy.

xxxx

When she and Castle got to the crime scene, the first thing she noticed were the odd looks the boys were giving them. While the two detectives had caught the couple post-first kiss, they hadn't actually caught onto their relationship. This was the first time in the months since she and Castle had been dating that they'd showed up to the crime scene together.

"Well, what do we have here?" Espo asked suspiciously as they came up to him. They were all in a dirty alley. CSU techs were all around, and Lanie was hovering over the manhole near one of the dumpsters.

"What do you mean," she asked, innocently.

"You two carpool this morning?"

She looked over at Castle, who shrugged. They were going public later that week anyways, so she figured it didn't matter anymore.

"Kind of happens when you're coming from the same place," she answered nonchalantly.

"Wait. You two came from the same place?" Ryan asked, coming up to them.

"Yes," Castle said.

"Are you two…together now?"

"Yes." They answered together.

Espo scowled. "How long?"

"Five months."

"FIVE MONTHS?" the boys shouted together.

"Yes. Five months. Now can we please get back to work?" Kate asked as she approached Lanie with the boys following. "Hey Lanie, what do we got?"

"White female, mid-thirties, no ID," Lanie said. "So you've come out with it then?"

Kate groaned. "Not you too. Yes. We're announcing it to his public this weekend. COD?" she asked, trying to get away from her personal life.

"Blunt force trauma. Looks like a blow to the back of the head. We found blood spatter over there on the sidewalk."

"Well at least we know it's not a robbery, then" Castle said. The boys looked at him oddly. Seeing that he answered. "A robber wouldn't have bothered trying to hide the body. They get what they want, then go." Kate smiled. He really was a great detective.

She turned back to Lanie, "Time of death?"

"Two days ago maybe? I'll be able to get more accurate once I get her back. And girl," Lanie said, while the techs were zipping up the body bag. "I want those details soon."

Rolling her eyes, she turned to the boys. "Canvas for witnesses and then see if there are any surveillance cameras in the area. Get unis to search for the murder weapon."

The boys nodded, and then left to carry out her orders.

xxxx

Kate was noticing small differences with this case. The first was that Lanie was on this case, not Perlmutter. The next thing she noticed was that the victim had been reported missing, which she hadn't the last time.

Her name was Eliska Sokol. She lived in an SRO a half block from where they found the body, a different building than it had been the last time. After talking to the super, they discovered that she had lived there about two years with her husband, though the super thought something had happened between the couple as he hadn't seen the husband in quite some time. That was another difference from her last time. Before Sokol's husband was her ex-husband. At least not all the changes in my new time are terrible, Kate thought as they made their way up to apartment 5-C to question the husband. She had sent the boys to start questioning the neighbors.

Sokol's husband was apparently not home. After returning down stairs, they told the super to call them if he saw the husband, and then made their way to the precinct.

xxxx

As there was nothing they could do until Lanie completed the autopsy, and the boys found the husband, she and Castle returned to his loft for lunch. They found Martha sitting at the counter reading a book.

"Hello Mother," Castle said, kissing his mother on the cheek.

"Hello darling," she said looking up.

She stood and gave Kate a hug. Kate would never quite get used to having Martha hugging her, which she seemed to do every time Kate entered the loft.

"So what are you two doing home?"

"Lunch. We're waiting for the boys to finish their canvas and for Lanie to finish the autopsy of our vic," Castle said, finding ingredients for sandwiches.

"So, I hear Paula made an appearance this morning," Martha said when Kate took a seat beside her.

"And how, might I ask, did you hear that?" Castle asked.

"I could practically smell her perfume when I came out this morning, and she isn't exactly the quietest person in the world."

They laughed at that.

"So what did she want?"

"Apparently the people behind the Bond books want me to write the next three novels in that series."

"Darling! That's wonderful. I know you've always wanted to write about a certain British spy. So are you going to do it?"

"No. I'm not done with Nikki yet."

"Castle, you know you don't have to continue just to stay with me, right?" Kate said. "I don't want to hold you back." She didn't want him to leave, of course, but she also felt guilty about keeping him from something he'd obviously wanted to do before he met her.

"It's not just that, Kate. I'm invested in Nikki's story. I want to finish it. And if I did move on, I'd lose any real rationale for working with you, and I like doing that. It makes me feel like I'm helping. And I get to spend my day with you. So while I won't deny that I used to be infatuated with James Bond, I'm happy with where I'm at."

Kate smiled at him, secretly thrilled with his answer. While there had been set backs, and she had almost lost him once already, she couldn't be happier with where they were personally right now. Just by being more open with him, and being more willing to jump into a relationship, she had gotten them to a great point in their relationship. A point that had taken them more than four years to get to in her previous time.

"Good then," she said after a few beats. "I like having you around. I need my partner by my side."

"Then that's where I shall be," he said smiling, putting a turkey sandwich in front of her.

Martha cleared her throat. "You guys are so cute."

"Thank you, Mother," Castle said dryly, taking a bite out of his sandwich.

xxxx

"We found the husband," Ryan said as she and Castle walked back into the precinct after lunch.

"He's here?" Beckett asked.

"He'll be here in an hour. Apparently he and his wife were separated. They haven't been living together for the last year."

"Well that explains why he wasn't there when we knocked. I wonder then," Castle said, "If we could get inside the apartment to have a look around?"

"That's a good idea," Kate said, giving him a small smile. "We'll get permission from the husband when he gets here."

xxxx

"Teador Hajek?" Kate asked as she and Castle entered the interrogation room.

"That's me," the man sitting at the table said. "What's this all about?"

"We'd like to ask you a few questions about your wife," Kate asked as she sat down across from him. For all she knew he was still the grieving man she had encountered in her previous time here. Until she knew otherwise, however, she wouldn't treat him as hostile.

"Eliska? What happened? Tell me."

"She was killed two nights ago," Kate said, giving him a sympathetic look.

It turned out that he and Eliska had separated because she had been obsessed with finding their son, even though Teodor was convinced that he had died of a deadly disease. They had fought often, and when he couldn't take anymore, he had left her.

"I miss my son. I could not deal with her…her obsession. I needed to grieve. She, she could not as she was convinced that he was still alive," he told them. She could see the grief on Castle's face as he listened to the grieving father. She knew he could understand what the man had went through.

"When was the last time you saw your wife?"

"Maybe two months ago? We started divorce proceedings. I did not want to. I still love her. But I could not take it anymore. We were supposed to meet with our lawyers yesterday, but she didn't show, and she didn't answer her mobile. So that's when I contacted the police about her missing."

"We found a domestic disturbance call about two years ago involving you and your wife. Could you tell us about that?" Kate asked, needing to cover her bases even if she didn't think he had anything to do with his wife's murder.

"We were arguing, the neighbors call police."

"What did you argue about?"

"The same thing we always were arguing about. She had taken yet another job to get close to someone who had a son about the age of our son. She was convinced that someone took our son, and that the boy we raised wasn't ours."

"Why did she think that?"

"I do not know. I worry that she was too shaken by her grief to think properly."

Kate thought about how different this was from her last time around. The husband from before had been the one who wanted to stay in the relationship while Eliska had wanted out. The timing also seemed to be a little different this time around. She wondered what else would be different.

They received permission to enter Sokol's apartment, and made sure that Teodor had the precinct's number in case he had any more information. On their way out of the interrogation room, Kate touched Rick's elbow and asked, "Hey, you okay babe?"

"Yeah. I just…you know."

"Yeah."

"What if she was right?" Castle asked when they got back to her desk.

"About what?"

"What if this really was about her son? She found out that someone switched them at birth or something like that, and that person found out that Eliska knew and killed her before their crime could be discovered by the authorities."

"Possible. We need to find out what and who she was investigating last. Let's go to her apartment and see what we can find out."

xxxx

"Here it is. Let me know when you're done," the apartment building's super said as he let Kate and Castle into their vic's apartment.

"Thanks," Beckett said as she passed by. "From what I see, the husband's story about them being separated for over a year looks true. It doesn't look like he has been here in quite a while. She lived here alone."

"There's not even a telephone," Castle pointed out.

"Something tells me she didn't have many visitors once her husband left."'

Castle strode over to where a calendar and several post cards were hanging on the wall. "Hey, over here." Kate walked over and looked at the calendar that had caught his attention.

"Work Calendar maybe?"

"Nothing past last Wednesday."

"Here are some postcards from home."

"Hmmm." Castle bent down after noticing a blank space on the wall. He pulled up a photo which had fallen off and showed it to Beckett. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, this one says 'not a fan."

"The scratches go through the paper," Beckett said. The picture showed a young woman with her son at one of the city's parks, just as it had last time. To Kate it looked like the same woman as it had been her last time through. "Whoever she is, looks like our vic hated her."

"Could be the feeling was mutual."

xxxx

"We found the park and talked to a nanny, she told us she thinks the woman and her son live in a building uptown," Esposito said a few hours later. "We also confirmed the husband's alibi. He was working at TOD. He was also the one who sent in the missing person's report, and we confirmed that he and Eliska were to have met with their lawyers yesterday, but she didn't show."

"Alright. I hate to say it, but it's getting late. Let's wrap this up and Castle and I will interview the woman in the picture tomorrow first thing," Kate said, shutting her computer down and rearranging the papers on her desk.

The boys looked at each other, confused. "You feeling okay, Beckett?"

"Yeah. Why?" Kate asked as Castle helped her on with her jacket.

"It's only 7. You never let us leave this early," Ryan said.

"Well I guess we could stay… You know, you're right. You guys stay a few more hours, I'm sure you can turn something up."

The boys groaned, obviously wishing they had kept their mouths shut. Kate smirked.

"You guys keep going at it. Castle and I are going to head out," Kate said, walking past them.

"Night, guys," Castle said.

xxxx

a.n.2. I covered a little more of the case this time because I made a major change to it. Reviews are awesome!