A/N: I got sixteen reviews! For one chapter! Wow! Thank you so, so, so much everyone, it means the world to me. I've seriously been grinning like an idiot for about an hour now :). I expected to get maybe five reviews, tops. I didn't think anyone would be that interested in this, haha. My mind is totally blown away! Plus, I can't even count the amount of favorites and alerts. Thank you so, so much to everyone who read the first chapter and I hope you like this one. Somehow the Castle finale got deleted off of my DVR, so I couldn't rewatch it to make sure my facts were right about the Hamptons, and I kind of assumed that Castle had a beach house. I'm sorry if that's wrong but just pretend, okay? It's fiction for a reason :). Also, I have no idea how long it takes to get to the Hamptons from the city and when I googled it I got answers ranging from two hours to five hours, so I picked a happy medium. Sorry for the super long author's note. Please review!

"I'll have the blueberry pancakes, thanks."

The waitress turned her gaze to Kate, who was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face covered by her hands. When she felt the waitress' nervous gaze, Kate glanced up.

"Nothing for me." She said. "Thanks."

Lanie shot a look at Kate, then smiled at the waitress. "She'll have the same as me."

The waitress nodded, promised them their food would be out shortly, and left the table. Lanie glared at Kate.

"If you want to go kick some publisher butt you need to eat breakfast."

Beckett groaned and pushed her face farther into her upturned palms. "I want to go back. This is a huge mistake. I want to go home."

"We're already here!" Lanie exclaimed. "I got up at 5:30, on a Saturday no less, and drove for three hours to haul your butt to the Hamptons to get your man. We are not going back."

"I can't do this!" Kate peered through a gap in her fingers at Lanie. "I'll just wait to see him until the fall. If I do this it's just going to cause problems. Plus, he's happy with Gina! I don't want to interfere!"

"There's a reason she's his ex-wife." Lanie emphasized. "Trust me, girl, he'll be jumping for joy when he sees you."

Beckett groaned.

"Quit being such a drama queen."

Kate didn't dignify her with a response, and continued to slouch in her chair and worry. What was she going to say? 'Oh, hey, Castle. Guess what? I love you!' didn't seem like such a good idea. And what was she going to do if Castle told her that he was in love with Gina? What if he was planning to get remarried? This would ruin everything. They wouldn't even be able to be friends anymore. It didn't help matters that her head was aching from all the alcohol she drank the night before.

Beckett jumped when the waitress placed a plate of pancakes on the table in front of her. Lanie smiled and thanked her, and Beckett just stared moodily at the food.

"Eat," Lanie reached over and poked Kate's arm with a fork. "It'll make you more confident."

Reluctantly, Kate ate a few bites of pancake. She spent the majority of the time pushing it around on her plate, only eating when she caught sight of Lanie's glare. After about half an hour, Lanie paid and the two of them walked outside into the warm air towards the car.

"Please take me home." Kate had threatened, bribed, and was finally reducing herself to pleading. Lanie raised her eyebrows and then climbed in the car. Beckett sat down on the passenger side and prayed to whatever God would listen that Lanie would take her home.

"Apparently Castle's house is ah-ma-zing." Lanie said, pulling her car out of the parking space and then easily merging with the traffic on the road. She acted as if Beckett hadn't spoken at all, just like she'd been every time Kate had complained. It was getting kind of annoying for the detective.

"How do you know that?" Kate shot her a questioning look, her curiosity winning out over her annoyance. "How do you even know where Castle's house is?" She hadn't thought of it earlier because she'd been so worried, but now she realized she had absolutely no idea where Castle was in the Hamptons.

"I have sources." Lanie smiled deviously, then rolled her eyes. "Montgomery gave me the address when I told him we'd be missing work for a little while."

Kate didn't respond, she just stared out the window. She watched as the huge beach houses flashed by. Everything was so beautiful, so perfect. It was definitely a higher class than she was used to. She caught glimpses of the ocean between some of the houses, and realized that it had been years since the last time she'd seen it. She knew she was a workaholic but, well, it didn't really dawn on her until just then.

When Lanie turned into the driveway of an enormous, beautiful, beach house, Kate began to panic.

"Here we are." Lanie turned the car off and looked at Kate. "Ready?"

"No."

"I wonder if Castle's even up yet." Lanie pressed a button to make the clock on the dash light up. It read 10:25. "Well," Lanie undid her seatbelt and opened her door. "I guess it's time to find out."

"Stop! Lanie! Stop!" Kate jumped out of the car, desperate to catch up to her friend and stop her from doing this if it killed her.

"Beckett," Lanie put her hands on her hips. "We are here, in front of his house. It's time to woman up!"

"But—,"

"Hello?"

Kate's blood ran cold and her eyes widened comically. Lanie was surprised, too, but was the first to recover. She turned around and sent a huge smile towards Gina, who was standing on the porch in a bathrobe holding the door open, confusion the prominent emotion on her face. Kate took a deep breath. This was it.

"Gina, hi." It was Lanie who spoke up first. "I'm really sorry to bother you here during the summer, but Beckett really needs to talk to Castle."

"Oh." Recognition seemed to dawn on Gina then, and her eyes moved towards Beckett. "Oh. Detective Beckett, it's nice to see you again." She smiled, and Kate smiled back, feeling sort of like a statue. "Come in, come in." Gina said, and held the door open for the two women.

"Thank you," Kate said quietly, and Gina led her and Lanie into a huge kitchen.

"Rick's down on the beach." Gina leaned against the counter. "I can go get him if you'd like."

"No, that's alright." Lanie said quickly. "Actually, Kate wanted to talk to him about something top secret, so…," She trailed off.

"Oh, a case?" Gina's eyebrows rose in interest. "That's almost all Rick's talked about since we got here." She smiled and walked over to a sliding glass door. She pulled it back and pointed down a small path leading to the ocean. "If you just follow the path down you'll be able to spot him. He's going to be so thrilled to see you. Maybe with his muse back he'll actually write something worth reading."

Kate smiled slightly at Gina, shot a panicked look at Lanie, and then stepped out into the warm summer air. The door shut behind her, and she realized that she was on her own. This was it.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm herself, she started slowly on the path towards the beach. Her mind was whirring a mile a minute, trying to think of something to say. She was going to make an idiot out of herself. She knew it.

She was about halfway down the path when she spotted Castle's figure in the distance. He was sitting on the sand, his legs stretched out in front of him, the waves lapping at his feet. Beckett's heart began to pound. He looked so carefree sitting there, relaxing, staring out at the beautiful ocean. She was going to ruin his peaceful summer.

Even though her instincts told her to turn around and run back to the car with her tail between her legs, she didn't. She knew Lanie would drag her back to the beach and handcuff her and Castle together if she had to, and that would just make this whole situation a lot worse. It was better to do this the way Kate wanted. That way at least she had some control over what was going to happen.

When her feet met the sand, Kate was surprised. She'd been too busy thinking to realize her steps had sped up. She kicked off her shoes, taking her time, and silently thanked Lanie for forcing her to wear shorts. Taking one last deep breath, Kate stilled herself for what she was going to do, and started her trek across the sand. It was warm, not quite hot yet, and squished under her feet, reminding her of summer vacations back when she was a child.

She'd always loved the beach. When she was young it had been her dream to move to the beach somewhere, and spend every day laying on the sand and letting the waves wash away her worries. That all changed, though, after her mother's murder. She'd gotten a harsh dose of reality and hadn't even visited the beach again. Until now.

She was a few feet away from Castle now, and she stopped walking. After one quick glance over her shoulder to see if she could spot either Gina or Lanie, she opened her mouth to speak. Nothing came out.

Then everything happened at once. Castle sighed, stretched, and stood up. He turned around, looked at her, and his mouth fell open.

Kate stared back, equally dumbfounded.

It was like the world froze at that one particular moment in time. Castle stared at Kate, and Kate stared at Castle. Neither moved. Neither breathed.

And then, as sudden as it had happened, the world unthawed and Castle had a huge grin splitting his face in two.

"Beckett!" He exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

Kate's mouth opened and closed a few times, but that didn't discourage Castle. He was in front of her in a moment, pulling her into a tight hug. Kate melted into his arms, and everything else melted away. Her worries, her fears, the reason why she was here…they all disappeared and left her head completely empty. A warm fuzzy feeling spread through her body and, before she knew it, she was hugging Castle back even tighter than he was hugging her.

"To what do I owe the visit?" Castle asked, chuckling, as he pulled back. He didn't pull away completely, keeping his arms around her back, and for that Beckett was thankful. His touch seemed to calm her worries a little bit.

"I…," She started, but didn't know how to finish.

Castle cocked his head, still smiling, and watched her in amusement. "Is there a case you can't crack? See, I always told you you needed me."

"No, that's not it." She said. She dropped her gaze and began to clam up.

"Kate, what's this about?" Castle's smile faded a little as he watched her have an internal debate with herself. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," She answered quickly, then bit her lip and looked at him. "No. It's not okay."

"What—?" His question was cut off as Kate leaned closer to him than she ever had before.

She could feel his breath on her lips. He could smell her shampoo.

Without thinking, she acted on her feelings, and leaned forward, kissing Castle the way she'd done only in her dreams.

His arms tightened around her and he kissed back.