So sorry this is a wee bit late, but my muse was hiding. (imagine that, a muse hiding from a Muse. ;) hahaha) Then, when I found her, she completely and totally floored me by running away with this idea! It went in a little bit of a different direction than I planned, but for now, I like it. :)

I kinda am 'Tarintino-ing it' a bit here, but I went back in time, and I hope it is clear where the timeline is... I did put some markers in there.

Again, no ownership here. Etc. :D

Enjoy!

~morethanamuse

Eleven

It was 11PM, and there were eleven reasons why she was freaking out.

Reason numbers one through eleven were exactly the same: she had just kissed Richard Castle.

7:30PM

They had just closed a particularly rough case on Thursday, and after a long Friday of paperwork, the boys had insisted on some unwind time at the 'Old Haunt,' now a hybrid writer/cop bar. It was fitting, after all, given its owner. With the piano plunking away in the background, the team of detectives, (including their captain) sat merrily at the corner table that was officially for the members of the Twelfth only, and unofficially (and affectionately) nicknamed 'The Sleuth Booth.' Castle, for the moment, was elsewhere, excusing himself earlier to 'attend to some owner-ly duties'.

8:30PM

An hour went by, and Beckett was beginning to wonder where in the world he had ran off to. Not that she would admit it, but every few sips or so, her eyes would dart from one end of the bar to the other, scanning for her favorite writer.

"He went to the back about 15 minutes ago," Ryan said to her, without so much as glancing her direction.

"I wasn—"

"Yes, you were." Esposito cut in, eyes still on Lanie, who was currently playing pool with the Captain.

"How did—"

"Oh please," Ryan teased. "You have been twitchy since he left."

"No I have n—"

"Yes you have." Esposito finished, again.

She looked down at her drink, and quickly downed the rest. Somehow, her carefully placed façade was deteriorating. She refused to admit that it had never deterred the boys from knowing exactly what was going on, so that had to be it. She shifted, gathering herself up.

"You two go on assuming, and I am going to get another drink."

The two guys exchanged a knowing look when she turned, only to be caught a moment later.

"You guys want anything?" She glanced back and saw the look they were exchanging, and rolled her eyes. "Are you two girls gonna just gossip all night? Should I get you a couple of Flirtinis? How about Cosmos?" She smirked.

Esposito possessively grabbed his beer and attempted a manly swig. Ryan just sipped his Guinness guiltily.

"Take that as a no…" She gloated.

She swept away, with the intention to go to the bar, but only as a front for what she was really after. The view from the bar was much better than the one at their table, and maybe she could spot Castle. After all, she was only curious what was taking him so long… and to make sure he was okay. Right? She nodded to herself decisively as she walked. After requesting and receiving one very stiff vodka-tonic, she scanned the room again. Where WAS that man?

She sipped at her drink, pondering. Her head tilted slightly to the left as she remembered. The basement! Slowly slipping away from the bar, she sneaked around and down the almost uncomfortably narrow stairs. She paused. She heard his voice. She simultaneously tried to suppress a smile, and made a move to turn around. Stopping, she listened for a moment, and she realized that his conversation was one sided. He was on the phone. Not wanting to eavesdrop, nor stick around if it happened to be Gina (or the like) on the other end, she turned and carefully brought her foot to the next stair up, beginning her journey back to the main level. As she put her weight on the step, the old wooden thing creaked. Loudly. Wincing to herself, she stopped in her tracks, hoping he hadn't heard anything.

If only she were that lucky.

"Is someone there?" He called out.

She stood still, sending up silent prayers to a deity that she wasn't sure existed.

"Hello?" He sounded startled now, apprehensive. Rightfully so, considering the last owner got offed. She heard his footsteps approaching and decided to try her best to soften the inevitable heart-attack she was about to cause him.

"Castle?" She said gently.

He had just come into view, phone still at his ear, and visibly jumped at the sound of her voice. She smiled.

"Oh, Beckett. Phew. I wasn't sure what I heard."

"I just wanted to see if you were okay. But I see you're on the phone, so I'll just meet you back upstairs."

"Unnecessary. Alexis and I were just finishing up."

Ah. Alexis.

"Are you sure?"

"Yep." He extended a hand, aiming to help her down the innerving stairs in her heels. She warily took it, and sat down when he guided her to the couch that was adjacent to his office desk.

"Lex? Yeah, sorry. It was just Beckett. Yeah, she's fine. We're at the Haunt. Oh yeah. Mmmhmm. You have fun, okay? Thanks for calling. Sometimes I don't know what I did to deserve such a good kid." Beckett smiled at this. "Love you too. Tell Ashley I say hello. Yes, I'll tell her. Bye, Pumpkin."

He clicked the phone, ending the call. "Alexis says 'hi'," he smiled.

"That was nice of her. Is everything okay?" she asked, her eyes wandering around the room.

"Yeah, she just wanted to let me know they were going to going back to Ashley's for a while after they got back from the movie." He laughed. "I meant it. I have no idea how she's my child sometimes."

"I know, no 'wildly inappropriate stories'… that you know of!" Beckett smirked.

"No, no, no, no, no! La-la-la-la-la!" He grimaced and put his fingers in his ears. "I don't want to hear it!"

Beckett laughed wholeheartedly. "Okay, okay. Don't have a conniption. I'll stop, I'll stop!" She said between laughs.

He looked at her doubtingly, but she did the 'zip my lip and throw away the key' gesture, so he figured he was safe. An idea popped into his head.

"Say, speaking of wildly inappropriate…"

"Castle," she warned.

He continued, undeterred. "I shared mine, you should share yours."

"What?"

"I told you, well, more like you found out, my wildly inappropriate stories, like my naked horse-capades…" he trailed, waggling his eyebrows, "It's only fair that you tell me a couple!"

"Yeah. As if!" She looked at him like he was crazy.

"You can dish it out but you sure can't take it," he said teasingly. "Wait. Flip that." He winked.

Beckett smirked the tiniest of smirks (not unseen by Castle,) as she thought about it. How could she get away with this without divulging too much. More importantly, how could she win? Oh, she knew how she could win. He was too easy.

"Okay, Castle. I'll tell you one, teeny, tiny story."

His eyes grew wide. She rolled hers.

"If," she stood up and put her hands on her hips, "you play pool with me."

"Done," he said, automatically. "Wait. What's the catch?" He asked, realizing that she could have easily set a trap for him.

"No catch. Just a nice, friendly game of pool." Her tone had dropped to almost a lyrical murmur. She set her drink down and began to unbutton her blouse. His eyes were unashamedly glued to her form. She smirked before pulling it off all together, only to reveal a fairly modest, black ribbed tank top.

"Chill, Castle. I can't play pool in that blouse. Too restrictive." She bit her lip as she picked her glass back up, and then took the last sip of her vodka-tonic. She turned briskly and waltzed towards the stairs, leaving Castle in a near-puddle on the floor.

"You coming?"

Castle mostly tripped over his feet in order to follow her, murmuring something about her being a tease, but still eager for this rare sneak peek into her past.

Little did he know, that she had more than a game of pool up her non-existent sleeve.

To be continued…

Yes, yes. MTAM is evil, etc. :D I have been up WAY too long to coherently finish, PLUS, this was turning into a monster of a one-shot. I will continue later, I PROMISE. :)

Be kind, please review!