My muse seems to be lurking around the edges of my mind. Fickle Bitch.

OM

New York FBI Field Office

Jordan Shaw sucked in a breath when Detective Esposito showed her the file copies that Castle had called her about. At first she'd been leery about talking to him at all but Rogers was brutally blunt and to the point: she was an FBI agent and this was definitely too big for the small group who had put together all the information. She had really pissed him off with her attitude.

"Okay, Rogers. Send your boy over with the files and – "

Rick had cut her off, bristling with anger that clearly carried through into his tone of voice.

"Forget it, Shaw. I can tell by your damned attitude that you'll just give this a cursory review and then shred it. Detective Esposito is no damned boy! I'll call the US Attorney and he can do the right thing…unless he's somehow involved."

"Okay, okay. I'll look at them and give you my opinion on whether or not there is sufficient evidence to investigate further. Jesus, Rogers, do you know who Dick Coonan is? A professional hit man with a string of arrests but not one conviction."

"Yeah, I know who he was. Someone killed him out at Rikers to shut him up. The confession we got still is admissible in court but it doesn't finger anyone but the Deputy Chief of Police and a few local judges. It just 'suggests' the others who are involved."

Shaw called her boss and asked for a meeting. He, in turn, called the US Attorney and asked him to 'make himself available'. He sat back in his office in the federal building and wondered how many people would be implicated before this mess was either resolved or swept under the carpet by higher-ups.

Kate watched Rick like a hawk as he meandered around the loft, bored but happy. They had 10 days until they went in for series of scans and she was terrified that the damned thing in his head was now bigger than a 'pencil eraser', growing too fast, and that they'd be robbed of precious time together.

Time was a thief, a bandit, a thing that you never had enough of when it was important and something you had entirely too much of when you were unable to do anything and faced boredom. She wished that she could 'save' time and keep it locked away and open it when needed. She wanted more time than just a lifetime with him would allow. She was a greedy bitch.

"Hey, Rick, wanna mess around?" Alexis wouldn't be home for a few hours and it had been a few days since they'd made love and she was also a needy bitch.

"Why Katherine, whatever are you suggesting?" He waggled his eyebrows, ignoring the Grade 8 headache that seemed to live permanently behind his left eye.

She sashayed up to him, running the palms of her hands up his chest to his shirt collar and pulled him down for a searing and hungry kiss. The fear in her turned to desperation and she practically dragged him to their bedroom. The sex was fast and hard and left them both breathless. Kate rolled over so that she was face to face with him and sighed.

"Well, Rick, that was good but I was hoping for 'great' so…let's try that again and this time, lover, I'll try not to scream in your ear, okay? I want you to render me unable to make the barest sound. Are you up for it?" She glanced down and giggled. "Yep, I see that once again, Little Richard is up to the task."

This round was slow, almost teasingly so, and the way he seemed to just barely touch her and yet leave burning flesh behind him soon had her panting and whispering how much she loved him and needed him and…her climax struck her mid-breath and she couldn't have made a sound if her life had depended on it.

Those lips…lethal weapons…were still teasing her, his tongue seemed to have a mind of its own and when he finally got around to his own pleasure, she was sure she'd been struck mute for life. Kate shivered when his lips found her ruined ear just as he almost always did when he climaxed and he whispered 'Kate!' and damned if she didn't feel the sudden clenching of her muscles around his shaft as he thrust more and more erratically and she joined him in another endless moment of pleasure.

"Kate…I think you broke me." He huffed out a laugh that exhausted his oxygen and he gasped for breath.

"Just wait until the honeymoon, Rick. This stuff we're doing now is just mere…foreplay." There were things she'd heard about, stuff that made her blush but also seemed to arouse her and she wanted more than anything to surprise her husband and satisfy his every desire. She wanted to be more than just a wife. She also wanted to be his lover for all time.

"F-foreplay? You do know how old I am, right, Beckett? Foreplay?"

Clinic

The doctor shuffled a few papers in his file before looking up at the couple sitting before him in his exam room.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Castle, but the results are inconclusive. It doesn't appear to have grown and it's definitely not becoming malignant. I wish I could give you a more definitive answer but I can't. Let's schedule another appointment for May and we'll run the scans again."

Kate drove home. The atmosphere in the car was lighter than before, of course, but each seemed lost in their own thoughts.

"Well, Kate, all things considered, it couldn't have been a better outcome, could it?" He knew she expected something bleaker but he found it hard to read this Beckett.

She glanced away from the road and intertwined her fingers with his. "I just wish he'd said it was gone. This is just so…unresolved. I don't like not knowing, Rick. It's ingrained in me – knowing, I mean."

"Beckett, we've talked about this. Life ends abruptly and you don't always get a tip-off that it's coming. We just need to live each moment to the fullest and not despair because it might be the last for either of us. We need to live each day as if it was our last. No long face, Katherine or I'll call your Dad."

"You wouldn't dare!" The last thing she needed was a life skills lecture from her father.

"Would too. Now, no more talk of dying or tumors or anything negative. We've got a wedding coming up and I'll bet you haven't given a thought to Christmas shopping, have you?"

New York City

She hated shopping. She vowed to do it all on line but hadn't gotten around to it. Rick hovered over her, prattling on about the wedding lists and Alexis was almost as bad. They'd gone shopping for a wedding dress and Alexis was just as particular as she was and their tastes clashed. It had been a long 7 hours but they finally found a dress they both liked – until Kate saw the price.

"Nope. It's beautiful and we both like it but it costs a fortune and I'm only going to need it for one day. I'll never need another so why spend a fortune on a dress that's going to be hung up and forgotten?"

"Well, with a little alteration and maybe a shorter train…I thought maybe I could…" Alexis hesitated. This was foreign country to her just as it was to Kate.

Kate pulled Alexis into a tight hug and whispered that it was a sweet thought but that she hoped Alexis would still want to wear the dress for her own wedding...'in 10 or so years'. The teen had touched her heart and she was almost in tears.

"We'll take it. Think your dad will like it?"

"I think he'll be more interested in what's under it, Kate. Victoria's Secret has some lovely…"

"I think that all-girls school in North Dakota has an opening in January…"

"Jeez, Kate, lighten up already with the North Dakota stuff. I hear it enough from Dad."

Castle Loft

The two young women laughed and joked as if they were transgenerational sisters rather than future wicked step-mother and step-daughter. They had talked about their relationship and Alexis just blurted out that she'd always wanted an older sister to confide in and gossip with and since her own mother was such a basket case…

That touched Kate more than anything. She forgot that Alexis had 'lost' her mother at a much earlier age than she had and that her father, sweet man that he was, had to perform both mother and father roles. He did both admirably but there were just some things that a daughter just couldn't discuss with her father – or her mother.

Like sex, relationship issues, dating do's and don't's, or personal hygiene issues. Things that would mortify Castle but didn't seem to bother Kate at all.

Unknown location

The man known to his associates as 'The Dragon' looked across the desk and grimaced. It was not a facial expression many saw and lived to tell about.

"Compile a list of anyone who may have the slightest knowledge or interest in our activities and have it on my desk as soon as possible. This police detective – she's a loose thread and her thread ties too many others into our Tapestry. We will move on all those on your final listing simultaneously. Alert the gardeners and the cleaners."

"Yes, Sir. How many layers down do you wish to peel?" Euphemisms.

"If they are parents, to their children. If they are grandparents, to their children and their children. If they have lovers, them too. Peel the onion until there's nothing recognizable left."

"Some of those involved are public figures…"

"So are some of us, Captain. You would risk your wife and family and reputation for sentiment?"

"I'm just saying that a strike of this magnitude…"

"Better to take a little healthy tissue with the tumor than risk leaving behind something that might threaten the body as time passes. You have your orders, Captain. Oh, and be sure to confiscate any records, files or dossiers your men come across. I'll want to have my forensic experts see if they can find a link to the traitor."

"And the FBI agent?"

"Bring her in. Have her questioned, vigorously. Her family, too. Leverage. Include her in your plans."