Disclaimer: I don't own Castle and don't profit from writing these stories (except for my own amusement).

PANCAKES, PLANS, AND PARTINGS

When he opens his eyes that Sunday morning, Kate is still asleep. He slips out of bed and heads into the kitchen, determined to make the most out of the first time he's woken up before she has.

He rummages through her cupboards and refrigerator, gathering the ingredients for pancakes. She has one less egg than the recipe calls for and he can't find vanilla anywhere, but he mixes the batter anyway, and by the time he hears her footsteps in the hall, he's already starting the first batch.

"Pancakes?" she says, looking equal parts sleepy and confused.

"Esposito once told me that they're an edible way of saying thank you so much for last night," he replies.

She finally smiles. "Well, in that case, you owe me at least a dozen more pancake breakfasts."

"Or maybe you owe me," he teases back. "I don't even like baseball."

That one earns him a laugh. They fall into a comfortable silence until he suddenly senses Kate staring at him a little too intently, watching his every move as he flips the pancakes. "What's with the serious face?" he prods. "Was one of your ex-boyfriends a fan of pancakes too?"

There's a pause before she says, "Nah. Just doughnuts with rainbow sprinkles."

It's his turn to laugh, even though it's so ridiculous that he can't quite decide whether or not she's joking. After another moment of quiet, he ventures, "I was thinking. Memorial Day weekend. My family has a beach house in Asbury, but no one's using it this year. I was hoping you'd come out there with me."

Kate's face lights up at the mention of the beach. "I'd love to," she agrees enthusiastically.

"And there's a great Chinese place just around the corner. On Friday nights they have an amazing seafood buffet. Ten times better than Hung's. It's almost impossible to get a reservation this close to the day, but we can try."

She bites her lip as she takes the now-empty batter bowl to the sink and begins to wash it. "I don't know about that. I was hoping to work on Saturday," she tells him. "I'm running low on vacation days from apartment hunting, and my cousin's getting married in L.A. this fall, and I promised I'd be there."

"Oh," he says. He wonders if she'll ask him to come with her, and makes a mental note to check on how many vacation days he's got saved up. "Bridesmaid?"

"Yeah. Seventh time," she says as she reaches for a dishtowel.

"Popular you," he jokes. "Have you ever not been a bridesmaid?"

"Only once, actually, now that I think about it," she answers, pausing in her drying of the bowl to smile at the memory. "It was a small wedding. I caught the bouquet, too." She stops suddenly, looking embarrassed.

He's quick to reassure her. "Don't worry. I know you weren't trying to send any coded messages or anything," he tells her. She nods and smiles, and he laughs at her expression of relief. "Goodness, Kate, relax. Not every guy has a mental breakdown at the mere thought of commitment."

The smile vanishes in an instant. He has absolutely no idea what he's said wrong, so he decides a change of subject is his best course of action. "So. Check on your vacation days for next weekend. Worst case scenario, you take the pay cut and I'll help you sell off some of your ridiculous overcoats."

She swats at his arm with the dishtowel she's holding.


Thanks to a sudden spike in robberies, he doesn't see her at all for the next few days. On Monday and Tuesday, he works nonstop past eleven and she's already gone when he comes upstairs. When the tide of work finally seems to abate by Wednesday, Kate and her team catch a case. He talks to her briefly on the phone that night, and she manages to stay awake for a few minutes to fill him in on the details—some crazy spy game that sounds like something Castle might have invented. (Why is he thinking about Castle, anyway? It's not healthy.)

On Thursday morning, he sets his alarm early and gets to the precinct by 7:30. He's not surprised at all to see her already there. She looks so stunning, perched on top of her desk and reading from a file, and he hasn't seen her in so long, that he decides he'll risk her anger. He wastes no time in striding over to her, snatching the folder from her hands, and burying his face in her neck.

"What the hell?" Kate hisses, but he can tell from the way her body tenses and her breathing quickens that she's enjoying this more than she wants to.

"I missed you," he whispers. "Can I see you tonight?"

He feels her nod. Before either of them can say anything more, her head whips toward one side. He turns to look, and sees Castle, of all people, parading in. At 7:35 in the morning. What the hell? It's as if the guy knew he'd be here and was trying to sabotage his moment with Kate or something.

Kate hurriedly slides off the table and he barely manages a polite nod at Castle as he walks by, all the while thinking about using Kate's kickboxing moves on the man.

It's the first time that morning that Richard Castle pisses him off.

The second time comes at half past ten, after the restaurant in Asbury calls him about an opening for Friday dinner. He races upstairs to tell her. The first thing he sees his Castle, looking a little too comfortable in front Kate's murder board and sitting a little too close to Kate, as if he owned the 12th precinct, as if he owned her.

He decides in that moment to not-so-subtly inform Richard Castle exactly how and with whom Kate Beckett spends her three-day weekends. He knows she'll be furious later, but he's pretty sure the wounded look he sees on Castle's face is totally worth it.


When he comes upstairs to pick her up that night, he's expecting either the cold shoulder or a rant about how he's compromised her professional image. She's upset, he can tell, but to his surprise it's not the angry type of upset. It's… sadness.

She's quiet in the cab and gives unusually vague answers when he asks what's wrong. He runs through possible scenarios in his mind. A particularly disturbing case? A death in the family? He doesn't know.

He doesn't push her that night and she ends up making the first move, but she's so detached and subdued that he almost feels as if he's committing a crime. The next morning he's up before she normally is, but she's already gone. In her place is a note weighted down by a key. Had an idea about the case & going in early to look into some leads. Lock up behind you. The optimist in him wants to interpret the key as a signal of some sort of progression in their relationship, but he knows it probably just means she trusts him more than the criminals who might loot an unlocked apartment.

Sometime in the middle of the afternoon he decides he should head upstairs to see her. He's got his coffee mug in hand and is on his way when his partner, Charlie Robertson, demands, "Where are you going?"

"Coffee," he says, holding the mug up in exasperation.

"Break room's the other way," Robertson points out. The guy's even nosier than Castle.

"Okay, fine," Demming snaps. "I'm going upstairs for coffee. Is that a problem?"

"Making excuses to watch Beckett and Castle?"

Demming nearly drops his mug. "What?" he sputters, wondering exactly how much his partner knows.

"Beckett and Castle," Robertson repeats, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. "You know, Nikki Heat and the guy who wrote the book?"

"Yeah, I know who Beckett is. I worked the Racine case with her, remember?"

His partner nods and shrugs. "I guess most of it happened before you got here, but we used to make excuses to go up to Homicide and watch them at their old-married-couple act and get inside information for our bets."

"Bets?"

"Lanie the ME had this pool going. Almost everyone here made bets on when they'd get together. Except maybe her boss."

"Had a pool? Did anyone win?" Demming asks, and instantly senses that spoke a little too quickly.

Robertson notices it too, and raises an eyebrow. "Why do you care, anyway? Are you dating her? Is that why you've been going up there all the time?"

"No! They have good coffee up there." Robertson looks skeptical. "Come on. I'll show you."


When he's finally face-to-face with Kate later that afternoon, she dives straight into we need to talk and I don't think I'll be going to the beach house with you this weekend. He's been on the receiving end of this speech enough times that he knows exactly what she means.

He asks her for a reason, looking for something he can try to fix. You know better than to kiss me at my desk (but I missed you). Don't think you can bring your Robbery friends up to my floor just because you're dating me (but I was trying to keep us a secret like you wanted). You shouldn't have dragged my private life in front of Castle (but he's trying to steal you away from me).

But all Kate says is you're not what I'm looking for right now, and for the first time, Tom Demming realizes that Castle's had her all along.

He leaves her key on her desk on the way out.


As he's leaving for the day, he steps on the elevator (without her) to see Castle standing there with his arm around a gorgeous blonde (not as beautiful as Kate).

He tries to take some twisted pleasure in this fact, tries to tell himself that it's Kate's fault they're both going to be miserable this summer, tries to tell himself that she had it coming.

For some reason or another, he can't quite bring himself to believe it.

FIN.