It's been awhile but I still don't own Castle and I don't own the song.
Song: "A Foggy Day (In London Town)" - Michael Bublé
Of all the times and places Richard Castle had imagined he might kiss Kate Beckett again, he never thought it would actually happen on a Thursday afternoon, in the precinct elevator, right before he needed to get on a plane and fly to another continent.
But much to his surprise, and hers as well, that's how it did happen.
The past few weeks had been a whirlwind for Beckett's whole team. It seemed like every time they closed a case the phone would be ringing about another body before the ink was even dry on the paperwork for the last. Castle had been there with them for all the dead ends, early morning crime scenes and late night brain storming sessions, except for when Beckett persuaded him to leave, reminding him that he had a daughter at home and, lucky for him, she was a teenager who actually liked to spend time with her father.
In the midst of it all Castle had also been gearing up for a brief publicity tour in London to promote Heat Rises and the upcoming release of the Heat Wave movie. The publishers were convinced it was a prime opportunity to lock in new readers and increase his exposure in the British media and when Gina and Paula double-teamed him it was impossible to say no. They had been adamant and accused him of neglecting his duties as an author while he was out playing pretend with the real cops. And while he hated to admit it, they had a point. Ever since he started shadowing Beckett and her team he had refused to do publicity outside of New York City.
So he had given in and agreed and despite his initial reluctance he found that he was looking forward to the trip. It was only for a few days and London was his second favorite city in the world. It was impossible not to feel inspired walking along the same history filled streets that so many of the literary greats and so many characters, both real and fictional, had walked before him.
Or at least he had been looking forward to his visit. But that was before the elevator incident on Thursday.
It had all started earlier in the week when after a long day of running in circles and getting nowhere with the investigation he had found Beckett glaring at the murder board looking like she was about three seconds away from snapping the marker in half. From that moment he was determined to make her smile before the night was through. At the very least he could save the marker and stop it from exploding all over her shirt which was guaranteed to only make things worse.
So he had adopted a ridiculously exaggerated British accent, an odd mix of the refined, proper Queen's English of an Oxford professor and the cockney slang of an old-fashioned London fishmonger, and attempted to coax her away from the board for some dinner. She had not been amused at first but an hour later she had a full stomach, a workable theory and a smile twitching the corners of her mouth.
Mission accomplished.
For the next few days he had brought that accent back whenever he felt the stressed out detectives could use a touch of levity. It had been getting mixed results and when he walked into the precinct on Thursday morning and decided he would throw some Shakespeare into the mix, he wasn't sure if Beckett was going to continue to roll her eyes at him while trying to hide her smile or if she was going to threaten to shoot him if he didn't stop immediately.
Fortunately, she chose the eye rolling and he spent the rest of the morning working Shakespeare quotes into the conversation every chance he had. Thanks to his mother and her plays he had quite an extensive arsenal to choose from. He even managed to get a few quickly suppressed smiles out of Beckett for his efforts. Ryan and Esposito's reactions had been a bit odd, though. Every time he quoted the bard Ryan scowled and Esposito smirked at his partner. He had no idea what that was all about.
-o-
"I still think it was the neighbor, Barlovski," Castle said as he and Beckett walked back into the precinct early Thursday afternoon. They had been out interviewing the victim's colleagues but their questions hadn't uncovered anything useful. "He has the best motive and the most to gain from Randolph's death. Plus, he's super creepy. And what was with his eyebrows? There's no way that color was natural."
"I know," Beckett agreed, "but I can't arrest someone just because they have a motive and they're creepy. There's absolutely no evidence to tie him to the crime."
"True, but the man has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT. It is entirely possible that he built a robot to carry out his villainous deed and programmed it to self-destruct after it had completed its mission."
A passing officer gave Beckett an incredulous look and she just shook her head in response. It had been awhile since Castle had spouted one of his far-fetched theories and he seemed to be making up for it big-time now.
"It self-destructed without leaving behind one piece of evidence that it had ever even existed?" she asked skeptically as they headed toward the elevator.
"Yes! I'm telling you, the man is an evil genius."
"Well, in that case, I guess he's going to get away with it. I should just stop investigating and go tell the Captain that I found the killer but we can't arrest him because he plotted the perfect murder via robot assassin and we're never going to find enough evidence for a conviction," she said as they stepped into the elevator, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
She pressed the button for their floor and turned around to face him, crossing her arms over her chest and rolling her eyes.
"Come on, Castle, this is ridiculous, even for you."
"Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made for kissing, lady, not for such contempt."
He quickly clamped his mouth shut when he realized what he had just said and looked at her with wide eyes. He hadn't really meant to say it, not out loud at least, but it was out there now and there was no getting it back.
For a split second she looked surprised but in the next instant she'd quirked an eyebrow and was watching him through narrowed eyes. She took a half step closer to him, a dangerous glint in her eye as if she was daring him to act on his borrowed words.
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
He felt his mouth drop open in surprise as she came back with a quote of her own.
"What?" she asked, her lips curling into a self-satisfied smirk at the look of surprise on his face. "You think you're the only one around here who knows some Shakespeare?"
She had just denounced his theory with an eye roll and Shakespeare. How was it possible that she was so surprising and so amazing and so beautiful all the time?
Before he was even completely aware that he was moving, he had taken a step to close the space between them and tangled his fingers in the silky curls at the back of her head. And then he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers, fully intent on kissing that smirk right off her face.
She gasped and he took advantage of the opportunity to deepen the kiss, a hand landing on her waist as hers grasped his jacket to steady herself. His head spun at the taste of her, just like he remembered but still an entirely new and intoxicating experience, and he swore he could feel the floor moving beneath them. (It wasn't until hours later when he was somewhere over the Atlantic anxiously fidgeting in his first class seat that he remembered that they had been in the elevator and realized that the floor actually had been moving beneath them.)
She pulled away from him before he was able to fully process exactly what was happening and took a step back just as the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open.
She stared at him, her eyes wide, lips slightly parted and cheeks flushed, as she took a backwards step out of the elevator. He stayed where he was, unable to make himself move and unable to get his mind passed the fact that he had finally kissed her again and she hadn't pushed him away or threatened him with bodily harm. He had kissed her and she had kissed him back.
The elevator doors started to close again just as her phone rang. He stuck an arm out to stop them and she answered but neither of them broke their gaze.
"Beckett," she answered, her voice wavering a bit. "Yeah, ok, I'll be right there."
"They're bringing the brother in," she explained as she slipped the phone back into her pocket. "I have to go."
He finally tore his eyes away from hers to glance down at his watch. Damn, how had it gotten to be that late already? He had to get his bag from home and get to the airport if he was going to make his flight.
"Me too."
She nodded once, slowly, and took a few steps backward, eyeing him uncertainly. "Have a good trip," she told him stiffly and gave him a short, tight smile before turning away abruptly and heading toward the interrogation rooms.
"Thanks," he said faintly as he watched her walk away, his feet rooted to the spot in the elevator still in shock. He finally let the elevator doors close and right before they shut he caught a glimpse of her as she turned to look back at him, her expression unreadable.
-o-
It had only been a day and a half since then, but the traveling, time change and jet lag made it feel like a week, the longest week of his life. He couldn't stop thinking about her, couldn't stop thinking about the kiss, couldn't stop wondering if she was thinking about it.
For the first time ever walking into the Great Court of the British Museum, beneath its bright ceiling of triangle and diamond glass, had failed to excite and inspire him. Within the walls of the museum were centuries upon centuries of history and culture, stories of human lives, of triumph and downfall, love and loss.
On his previous visits to London he had spent entire afternoons wandering through the collections, getting lost in the stories and letting his imagination run wild, creating tales about unknown artists and ordinary people and what their lives may have been like, marveling at how similar or different they were from him and wondering about what they loved and feared and what they dreamed.
But today it was no use. He had been staring at the same clay tablet covered in the odd little wedge shapes of cuneiform writing for the past twenty minutes, unaware of the flow of visitors moving around him, thinking only about what he loved and dreamed of.
But she was thousands of miles away in New York City and what he feared the most right now was rejection. That when he got back she would tell him the kiss had been a mistake, that she didn't feel that way about him and she wanted to just stay friends and work partners.
He desperately wanted to call her, to talk to her and find out what she was thinking. The not knowing was killing him but every time he pulled his phone out his conscience told him that that was a conversation they should have in person. Whatever the outcome, they owed each other that much at least.
He sighed and finally moved from his spot, making his way back through the maze of rooms to the Great Court. The museum wasn't going to provide a distraction or an escape from his thoughts today. He might as well head back to his hotel and try to rest for a bit. He hadn't slept at all on the plane and, despite being in one of the nicest hotels in London, he had tossed and turned for hours last night before finally falling asleep.
He was a mess. He should have just gotten off that elevator, stayed in New York, taken a later flight. He had a book signing event this evening and instead of meeting a brilliant and charming author, his fans were going to meet an exhausted and pathetically lovesick man. Definitely not the impression he wanted to be making.
He walked outside and pulled his jacket tighter around him and shoved his hands in the pockets, trying to ward off the chill that would inevitably sink in. Mist hung over the city and there was no sun shining through the thick gray clouds to burn it off. He walked around a group of shouting and laughing school children and surveyed the courtyard as he walked down the steps. There was a tour group huddle off to one side and only a few other visitors milling about. The cool, damp, gray weather had sent most people indoors.
He almost tripped down the last step when his eyes landed on the familiar form of a tall, slender woman in a long, red coat standing under a lamp post. It felt like his heart skipped several beats. It couldn't be her. She couldn't be here. She was in New York. His mind was clearly playing tricks on him, the jet lag and lack of sleep catching up with him.
But still his feet propelled him toward her, drawn forward by some inexplicable force. As he drew closer he could have sworn he felt his heart actually stop. It really was her.
She was really there, leaning against the base of the lamp post, her arms crossed in front of her, watching the entrance of the museum. She hadn't spotted him when he circled around the throng of children but when she shifted her gaze as he approached and their eyes finally connected, a smile spread slowly across her face and the whole day suddenly appeared much brighter.
She pushed off the concrete base and moved toward him.
"What…? How….?" he choked out, unable to form complete, coherent sentences. He was so stunned that she was actually there, standing in front of him, that all he could do was stammer the beginnings of his questions.
Her eyes sparkled with amusement but her smile was soft, warm… affectionate. He had caught glimpses of it in the past but never before had she looked at him with those emotions displayed so openly on her face.
"After you left, we finally caught a break and solved the case," she told him, answering the question he hadn't managed to ask. "We'd maxed out our overtime the last few weeks so the Captain made us take a few days off."
He nodded and let her continue, not yet daring to ask why she had decided a trip to London was the best way to spend those days.
"I talked to Alexis and she told me what hotel you're staying at and when I got here this morning I talked to the concierge. He said you had mentioned you were going to the British Museum and, well, here we are." She ended with a nonchalant shrug, acting as if everything she had done wasn't anything out of the ordinary.
But it was. It was extraordinary.
"You came all this way," he said softly, amazed and he could have sworn he saw her face flush a bit. He noticed that the fine mist had gathered as tiny droplets in her hair and on the shoulders of her coat and it shimmered slightly when she shrugged, adding an ethereal feel to the dream-like turn the day had taken.
"London suddenly seemed like the place to be," she told him cryptically and for a moment they just stood there watching each other.
He had wanted so badly to see her and talk to her but now that she was standing right in front of him he had no idea what to say or how to broach the subject.
Amusement flared in her eyes again as he continued to stare at her in silent disbelief. She bit her lip seeming to consider something briefly before stepping closer to him.
"So," she said as she stopped with just a few inches of space remaining between them, "are you going to kiss me or do I need to call the hotel and tell them I'll be needing that separate room after all?"
Her words snapped him out of his daze, shocked him into action.
"Don't you dare," he told her, his voice so low it was almost a growl.
She raised an eyebrow at him and he saw it again, that challenging glint he had seen shining in her eyes in the elevator and this time he was positive she was daring him to move.
He swiftly closed the remaining distance between them, wrapping an arm around her waist and threading his fingers through her hair, pulling her against him. He leaned in to kiss her and found her meeting him halfway. Their lips met for the third time and the world around them melted away. The fog and the chilling dampness disappeared and all he could feel was the heat of her mouth and the warmth of her body against his. Her arms wound around his neck and his last thought before he lost all cognitive ability was that of all the treasures the museum behind them contained, none of them could hold a candle to this woman in his arms.
-o-o-o-
"For suddenly I saw you there,
And in a foggy London town the sun was shining everywhere."
-o-o-o-
Thanks for reading!
This one had been sitting on my computer 90% complete for many months but something always bugged me about it so I never finished it until a recent early morning trip to drop someone off at the airport inspired me to give it another go. It's been a long time coming so please let me know what you think. I'd really appreciate hearing from you!
Also, I want to acknowledge that there are many wonderful versions of this song but my favorite, and the one that's on my iPod, is by Michael Bublé's which is why I credited it to him.
And last but not least, remember to vote for Castle and Nathan Fillion for the People's Choice Awards!