3x03 – Under The Gun

The ride back to the cemetery is filled with Castle chattering incessantly about how much he's always wanted to go on a treasure hunt, and Kate can't help but smile right along with him because his enthusiasm is contagious. At a stoplight, she glances over at him, and he looks so boyish and excited and carefree and Kate smiles as she realizes that she's excited as well.

It's been a long time since she's felt this way and she almost forgot what it's like.

She'll never admit it, but it's part of the reason she likes having Castle around; because he brings out the sides of her she's long thought were no longer there.

Like the side of her that's secretly really excited to uncover a stash of jewels.

When they arrive at the cemetery, the shovel remains untouched, tossed aside in the partially un-dug grave. Castle jumps down into the hole to retrieve it, eagerly re-emerges and practically skips after Kate as she counts two rows up, six stones over from where someone originally started digging.

"This the one?" he asks, nodding to the stone at their feet.

Kate shrugs. "Guess we'll find out if your theory is right."

Castle passes her the shovel while he takes off his jacket and Kate takes that as an invitation to begin digging. He wants to protest when he turns back around to see her hard at work, but then he catches a glimpse of her backside as she stoops slightly to ram the shovel into the ground, and any complaint dies on his lips.

She can do all the digging if she wants, so long as he gets to sit here and enjoy the view.

Eventually, though, restlessness and excitement take over, and Castle offers to do some of the grunt work. After all, he can't exactly go on a real treasure hunt and not take part in the actual uncovering of the treasure.

He takes the shovel from her outstretched arm, hops down into the now sizeable dip as Kate clambers her way out. She wipes her sleeve across her forehead, takes a giant swig of water from the bottle she grabbed at the last minute.

When she turns around to see how things are going, she's momentarily frozen by the sight before her. Castle has rolled up his sleeves, forearms exposed, and even in the streaky shadows of the lantern light, she can see the definition in them. Her eyes travel up to his biceps, still covered by the fabric of his shirt but even so, she can see the flex of the muscles as he lifts another pile of dirt, the way the muscles of his upper back contract and relax as he tosses it aside and returns for a second load.

He pauses, takes a moment to catch his breath, and only when she lifts her eyes to his face does Kate realize that his gaze is fixed on her. And she can't even pretend that she hasn't just been caught staring at him. Her cheeks flush with embarrassment and she busies herself with adjusting the front of her shirt, brushing off a few specks of dirt.

Castle raises an eyebrow at her, a smug smile on his lips, but wisely says nothing.

Thirty seconds later, her eyes are firmly fixed on his ass and the way his jeans so perfectly hug the taut curve of his...

She shakes herself out of it as that thought crosses her mind, averts her eyes and forces herself to stop thinking about Castle that way. She's still upset at him for the stunt he pulled over the summer, and she's upset over Royce, not to mention the fact that he has a girlfriend. So she really shouldn't be thinking about him this way.

But despite the warning voices in her head, she can't help but acknowledge that he is in fact attractive. And well-muscled. And easy on the eyes. And...

Thankfully, the shovel hits the ground with a large clunk just then, snapping Kate out of her dangerous train of thought and back to reality.

Castle turns to her, excited, practically jumping out of his skin as he rams the shovel against the ground again, hearing another chink of metal on metal.

"Think I found something," he announces with an excited smile, and Kate gives up all pretense then, jumps down into the newly created hole and begins kicking at the dirt with her boots. She can just see the lid of what appears to be a metal chest, and she brushes the soil aside, attempts to clear off the rest of the lid with her toes.

Castle goes to work digging down around the edges, outlining the chest as he scoops the dirt aside. Eventually he tires, passes the shovel back to Kate, and she finishes clearing out the gap around the edge of the lid, deep enough that they can open the trunk without dirt falling into it and wide enough to wedge their hands down in there for leverage.

"Do the honors?" she offers.

"Together?" he shoots back.

She shrugs, can't completely contain the smile of excitement. "Sure."

Castle flips open the latch with a sharp click and the lid lifts ever so slightly. "What if it's a dead body?" he asks suddenly.

"Like you haven't seen those before."

"Well, not like...this."

"What about the mummy?"

"Okay, but that was ancient and...cool. This will just be gross and disturbing."

"Castle, we just dug this up, I'm opening the chest."

He concedes with a huff of feigned annoyance and they position themselves on opposite sides of the chest, bending over and grasping the edges of the lid.

"Ready?" she asks, waits for his nod. "One, two, three."

They heave the chest open, the movements of the lid on the rusty hinges stilted and rough, but they manage. Kate keeps one hand on the lid just in case while Castle kneels down, moves aside the soft, tan cloth draped over the top to reveal...

"We found it!"

"That's it!"

Their exclamations are simultaneous and neither can reign in their excitement at being on a real live treasure hunt and actually finding treasure.

Before Kate can stop herself, she's releasing her hold on the heavy wooden lid and flinging her arms around Castle, wrapping him up in an excited hug. He hugs her back enthusiastically, and it doesn't really register until they disengage and step back, eyes meeting awkwardly. Because they don't...do that.

Except they just did.

"So, uh, what do we do now?" Castle asks, an attempt to clear the unease that now hangs between them.

"Dig it up the rest of the way?" Kate suggests, at a loss for any other course of action. They can't just leave it, but she also has no clue how they're going to get it out of the cemetery.

Castle shrugs, reaches for the shovel and gets back to work, deepening the trenches around the edges, unearthing enough dirt to reveal handles on the outside of the box.

It's not easy, and he's pretty sure he tweaked his back, but they manage to heave the chest up and out of the ground. The wood is old and rotting in places, and dust wafts up when they set the chest on the ground, and it smells...well, not pleasant. But they found the treasure.

"This is so neat," Castle enthuses, rummaging through the contents, millions worth of precious stones of the likes he's never seen.

Hell, he didn't even know chests of jewels existed outside of pirate movies.

"Oh, look at this one."

Kate indulges his obvious delight, reaches out to take the ruby from him and turn it over in her hands. He's right about one thing; these are pretty amazing. Large and faceted and gorgeous.

"I can keep some of these, right?" he questions, and she chuckles to herself because she should have known that question was coming.

"No, Castle."

"Why not?"

"Because they're not ours."

"But we dug them up."

"That doesn't make them ours."

"But..."

"You do realize I'm a cop, right? I have to return them to their rightful owner."

"You're not going to take even one?"

"No," she says in that 'duh' way of hers.

"Can I..."

"Castle."

He sets the gem back in place. "Right."

"Come on," she says, picking up the shovel and wedging it under one arm. "Let's see if we can get this to the car."

It's slow going and it's awkward, but they manage to get it into her trunk, out again, and into the precinct.

He pouts the whole car ride in both directions, maintaining the façade of being upset at having to return the treasure.

In reality, he doesn't really care what happens to it. Because he got to go on a treasure hunt with Beckett.

And she hugged him.

Thoughts?