A/N: I'm so delighted at the reviews for this tidbit! Apparently, what the Castle fandom needs just now is some comic relief, so I'm giving in to my own vanity and posting a follow-up. This is it, though, really, for this scenario.
There's a tap on Kate's door, two days after her procedure.
"Who is it, I have a gun," she calls out from her nest on the sofa. "Ow."
The door opens and Lanie comes in.
"Now I know you're feeling rotten," she says. "You left the door unlocked *and* you said 'ow'. Kind of ruined the effect of 'I have a gun'."
She smiles, then squeezes Kate's hand before going into the kitchen to stash some goodies she brought. Kate watches blearily from the sofa; eventually Lanie comes to sit next to her, handing her a cup of tea and setting down a container of yogurt for her nearby.
"Please tell me you're taking your pain meds."
"They make me woozy. I have been using cold packs."
Lanie shakes her head. "This is why I'd rather deal with the dead. They don't argue or make their own medical decisions."
"Not any more," Kate points out. That gets a faint grin from Lanie, who upon further interrogation finds that her friend took some OTC ibuprofen mid-morning, that she's due for another dose, and that Lanie will get her some and she is not to argue, is that clear?
They settle into the comfort of fluffy blankets, food, and a selection of DVDs.
Kate says to Lanie, after Groundhog Day, "Thanks again, so much, for coming over and distracting me. I hate being grounded like this."
"My pleasure, sweetie. I know what a pain it is - I had mine out when I was in college. Trying to sleep and heal while living in a dorm full of crazy noisemakers - I needed all the narcotics I could get."
"Better living through chemistry?" Kate snickers. "Yeah, I was pretty high there for a while. And had the worst hangover ever."
"You know I would have come over if you needed me," Lanie says.
"Thanks, but I got home okay, then it was just…" Kate trails off at Lanie's glare. "What?"
"How *did* you get home, Kate? I seem to recall you telling me you had a ride, but the next day nobody at the precinct knew anything about it. Your dad's out of town, you said, so…Please do not tell me you took the subway. Or a cab. No doctor worth his degree would let you."
"I did not take the subway or a cab," Kate says solemnly. "I did call for a ride, apparently. Or they called for me, I don't remember everything."
She realizes what Lanie's going to ask next, just as Lanie opens her mouth, and Kate would kick herself for even bringing up the subject if it were anatomically possible. And if her face didn't hurt so much that moving at all was a chore.
"Who'd they call?"
Kate shoves a spoonful of yogurt into her mouth and mumbles, "Castle."
Lanie's glare softens just a little, into something more amused.
"Did you say 'Castle'?"
Kate nods.
"Richard Castle. Writer Boy, nine year old on a sugar rush?"
Kate nods again.
"What *do* you remember?" Lanie asks, and now her expression resembles that of the Cheshire Cat.
Kate takes another spoonful of yogurt to stall for time. Once she swallows, she says, "I don't know why he was the one they called." (She has a vague memory of handing over her phone and directing someone imperiously to "call Mr. Castle".) "I remember he drove me here - "
"In the Ferrari?"
"I don't think so." Kate frowns (she would have remembered that, for sure). "He got me inside and I got into bed, and he said he'd hang around and make sure I was okay."
"That's all?"
"The next morning he was gone. He left a note saying he'd had to go home and get Alexis off to school."
"Sweet," Lanie says. "So, you didn't make a pass at him or anything?"
"Lanie! Ow. Why would I do that?"
"It's the perfect excuse. You're drugged to the gills, oops, was that your booty I just grabbed, I'm so sorry - Did he make a pass at you?"
"I don't remember," says Kate, uncomfortably uncertain. "Can we just go on to the next movie, please?"
Next is What's Your Number?, a comedy with Anna Faris and Chris Evans, who is scantily clad in much of the movie, thus affording plenty of catty conversation between the viewers.
"Now that's what I call one-on-one," Lanie says appreciatively during a scene when the two characters are playing H-O-R-S-E for clothing; Evans is down to boxer briefs and Faris is sporting a magenta bra and panties. Afterward, the two collect most of their clothes and take a walk along Boston Harbor in the middle of the night, and Evans challenges Faris to jump into the harbor...and starts taking off his clothes again.
"Take it off, take it all off!" Kate and Lanie are snorting with laughter, watching as the two characters leave a trail of clothing on the pavement and get ready to jump.
"I do not care if that's a body double," Lanie says, "that is one fine booty on that man. Whoever he is."
"Well, if you like 'em skinny," Kate teases. "Give me a guy with something I can grab onto."
"Like, for example?"
"Like Castle."
Lanie turns to stare at her, the movie forgotten, as Kate realizes what just fell out of her mouth, as the memory of said booty rises more clearly in her mind. She buries her face in her hands and mutters, "Oh my God. Oh, my God. What did I do?"
"What did you do?" Lanie asks gleefully. "And how, and where? I already know with whom."
"Lanie - I didn't. I mean, I didn't have sex with him." (No, she just - groped him in his car. And tried to pants him.) "He was a perfect gentleman."
"Mm-hmm. And you were a perfect lady?" her friend says skeptically.
"Well...it's still a little hazy…" (Parts of it are crystal clear. Why does that part have to be crystal clear?) "I got home, he got me a glass of water - I was sitting on my bed." Kate steels herself for more teasing. "I took off my blouse."
Lanie whoops. "I hope you were wearing something nice under it, girl."
"I don't know what I was wearing." (That sounds bad.) "A bra, some kind of bra. And then I wanted to take my pants off - " (Stop, Kate says to her subconscious, stop remembering, right there - ) "and I may have tried to - get him to take his off first."
"May have? Kate, you don't do anything by halves. You know you tried. What happened then?"
"He said he'd show me his butt if I let him tuck me in."
"And by 'tuck you in' he meant - ?"
"Just that," Kate snaps. "He just wanted me to go to sleep so he could leave."
"Riiiiiight. So did he keep his end of the bargain?"
"I took off my pants - yes, I was wearing underwear! - and I got under the covers, and he went and stood in the doorway and dropped his pants. For a second." (The longest second of my life, she thinks, and still not long enough.) "That was it. He put his pants back on, I went to sleep. End of story."
"You must have gotten a good look," says Lanie. "Enough to compare him to Chris Evans."
"Why are we talking about Castle's ass?"
"Because you've seen it now, and you can't un-see it. I bet it's a good double handful, mmm."
"All I did was look."
"You disappoint me."
"He was out of range," says Kate, then buries her head in her hands again. (Why do these things keep escaping her mouth?)
"You must have noticed what he was wearing underneath," Lanie prompts.
Kate gives up any attempt to filter her speech, as it hasn't been working at all today, and says with resignation, "Nothing."
"You didn't see anything?"
"No. I mean, he was wearing nothing. Commando. Butt naked. Au naturel."
If Kate wasn't so embarrassed at her own behavior she would enjoy Lanie's reaction, which is a wordless widening of her eyes...and her grin.
"I'm never going to live this down," moans Kate. "Maybe I can get him banned from the precinct. Like, forever."
"Oh come on," says Lanie. "First of all, not gonna happen. The Captain and the mayor like the publicity too much. Secondly, the man was trying to help you out, cut him some slack."
"Help me out, by aiding and abetting in my completely inappropriate - "
"Helping you out by bringing you home and making sure you got tucked in safely. He said it himself, he's a wiseass, not a jackass."
Kate can only hope that those words are more than a clever quip.
Thursday morning dawns, and Kate resigns herself to what she hopes will be a mercifully brief stage of probably merciless ribbing from her sidekick. She's back at the precinct, to the relief of Ryan and Esposito, who tell her that they "saved some of the weird ones for you, Beckett".
"How thoughtful of you," she says with the expected eyeroll, just as the elevator doors open and release Castle into the bullpen. She immediately focuses on whatever folder is in her hand and resolutely does not look around until he deposits her usual coffee on her desk, with a flourish worthy of a magician.
"Good morning, Detective," he says, sliding into his usual seat with a sunny smile. "Glad to see you back in the saddle. Fully recovered, I take it?"
"I am, thanks," says Kate. "And - thanks for getting me home in one piece, the other day."
"About that - "
Kate nearly chokes on her (very good) coffee; Castle, oblivious, goes on talking.
" - what was your original plan, Beckett? You told the doctor you had a ride home, but you didn't, did you?"
She gives him the blankest look possible over the rim of her cup.
"Did you think you'd call a cab? Not the subway, certainly. You're too cautious to ride the subway while doped," he muses. "Why not get Lanie to do it? Or your dad?"
Kate sighs. He's not going to give up, so she replies, "Dad's out of town, and Lanie was on shift. I figured I'd go, have the procedure done, then see how I felt before imposing on anyone for a ride."
Castle shakes his head, disapproving. "Sometimes I feel like I'm talking to Alexis," he says, but there's an amused twinkle in his eye. "It's surgery, Beckett. Not like getting a cavity filled, where they give you a local that allows you to function normally."
"'Normally' isn't a concept you usually embrace, Castle." Okay, this is more like their usual back and forth, she thinks. Let's get past this and back on level ground. "Point taken. Can I get back to work now? Whoops, another concept you don't embrace."
"Promise me, if you need to have anything like that done again, if you ever need a ride, you'll call me."
His tone is unusually earnest and his expression is unguardedly sincere. She nods and says quietly, "I will, if I need to. I promise. And thanks again, Castle."
"I appreciate that rare expression of trust, Beckett," says Castle, sitting back in his chair and getting out his phone, most likely to start a new game of Fruit Ninja. Kate returns her gaze to the case in front of her. All is well, back to normal - until he speaks up again.
"You might say that I thank you from the bottom of my heart."
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