Chapter 6

Kate was having a miserable day.

The call for the case had come in the dead of the night – no pun intended – and she reluctantly gave up the warm confines of her comforter for the dark and chilly world outside her well-heated apartment. She had already been working on a case the day before, deciding to finish up paperwork rather than letting it pile up for the rest of the week.

In the long run, it was a good idea. In a state of definite lack of sleep, it seemed like a stupid move to be sincere and productive. Staying to finish her reports despite knowing she was on call for the night was her decision – and such was her job (one that she loved on most days) and so she resigned to follow through with not much more than allowing herself to be in a less than stellar mood.

Unfortunately, the day grew bleaker with every passing hour.

The case was going nowhere, and yet it wasn't quiet. There were tons of leads. The victim was shady and well hated by a whole lot of people – honestly it seemed like he had a hate club. Before they knew it was a murder investigation each of them had vividly described how they would like to kill the victim – three of them wanted to throttle him with their bare hands, one of the women wanted to choke him, a cousin wanted to "dunk his useless butt in honey and toss him in a barrel filled with ants", his mother wanted to whack him dead with a broom, and his "business partners" wanted to feed him to the sharks (They specified that they didn't mean loan sharks, but actual sharks in tanks like in those ridiculous old spy movies).

Of course the actual COD was a simple, single gunshot to the head. And of course, when they realized Stu was dead, the mourned his loss – the mother was positively wailing and blowing her nose on Esposito's sleeve as her stubby little fingers clutched his t-shirt (Thank God for him that he had a few extra clothes in his locker. Yuck). Ryan was only slightly luckier. He narrowly missed being clogged in the nose when the business partners jumped up to celebrate their 'friend's' untimely demise (untimely only because they thought it was a couple of months too late). The interrogations had been a colossal waste of their time, energy and Espo's t-shirt.

They were all exhausted and more than cranky by the afternoon. Considering that they had been at it since before dawn, it seemed to them like a whole day's worth of work, and they still had time to go. They were taking turns to have a late lunch, the boys going first upon Kate's insistence, while she continued to piece together the timeline. It was mucking up her already exhausted mind, and that was doing nothing to improve her mood – which is when Castle called.

Very early in their partnership, no matter what Castle did, Beckett found it annoying. Every little stupid step he took to follow her, every single time he invaded her personal space, every time his face turned arrogantly smug; all the ridiculous, appalling innuendo; the way he thought he could charm his way by buying her breakfast, and the unlimited supply of moronic theories – well, she thought he'd made it his life's ambition to annoy Kate Beckett.

Eventually she started seeing things differently. He trusted her enough to follow her anywhere, guard his life, and be her back up. His close presence reassured her, anchored her. The smug grin suited his face, and more often than not, it was really a grin of pride at succeeding in making her happy. The innuendo, and the subtext – it was as much a part of their language as cop slang was. Each day saw many variables – some good, some bad – but he provided her with a constant. It was as simple as coffee. Half the time he sprouted crazy theories just to get her to lighten up, one fourth of the time he actually believed in them, and it was cute, and another fourth of the time, it got her thinking outside the box, and actually solved a few cases.

When he called today, sadly, her perception had been skewed by her mood. It went back to era of angry-Beckett days.

"Oh-kay, Beckett. Take it easy, I was just joking," he said defensively, after she gave him a telling to on a wise crack.

"Just because you take everything easy, Castle doesn't mean we all do. It's a serious job, but no – everything is a joke to you."

"Kate, come on. It's our thing. I joke, you pretend not to laugh," he said, and repeated quietly, "It's our thing."

"Don't. Don't just switch on the charm and call me Kate, and think that that'll help."

"Wow. You're being unfair. I don't even know what's going on with you."

"Unfair. Hah! I'll tell you what's unfair, Castle. That this guy is dead, and we're sorrier about it than anyone connected to his life. The only person remotely interested is the guy who inherited his baseball card collection."

"And sad as that is, I still don't understand why you're taking it out on me."

"This isn't about you!"

"I know. Tell me what it's about. I'm at a loss here," he said, sounding tired.

With the heel of her palm applying pressure to her forehead, she took a deep breath, but gave no answer.

"Look, Kate. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. I won't know until you tell me. Shake it off, figure it out – whatever. Call me when you're ready to talk, okay?"

"Yeah," she said, and then hung up.

Now it was evening, nothing that followed since the conversation was anything good. At this point, no news really was good news. The case was harassing everyone. Even Montgomery told them to give up on it for the day. She sent the boys home, though they protested about it – not that they didn't want to go, but they wanted her to leave too. "It's not going anywhere, Beckett. We'll come back at it after a decent night's sleep," Ryan had said.

They finally left when she told them that she would cut out soon as well. "Just a little while longer, and I'll call it a night too," she'd said. They probably knew a little meant a lot. They also knew that it was as much of a compromise as she was willing to make.

On top of everything else in the day, on top of fuming at almost everyone and everything, she was also angry at herself. It was guilt, and she knew it. Castle was right, she was being unfair - and nothing - nothing today was making her feel better.

With that in mind, hours later, she headed for the one thing that might help. The coffee machine. His coffee machine. Theirs.

She turned it on, and listened as the metal contraption came to life, being as quiet as it could, and yet it was loud. And though it was loud, it was peaceful. It hissed once before quieting down into the last couple of drips, so she reached for her cup. As though in keeping with the way the rest of her day had gone though, when her hand was under it, another wave of steam set loose from the nozzle and causing her to hiss in pain as she yanked her arm back.

A string of colorful curse words left her mouth, and she couldn't care less - she was in pain, and she was tired - no, exhausted; and the damn coffee machine had turned against her. This was a really, really crappy day and all she wanted to do was go up and pummel an unsuspecting punching bag, which she probably wouldn't be able to do with a now sore hand. Didn't stop her from whacking the machine thoughtlessly, though and that caused another wave of pain jolt through her. She grabbed the counter with her good hand, holding the other close to herself; ground her teeth, and clenched her eyes shut. Just let one more thing go wrong, and she'd be a mess. A bigger mess. Just one more stupid -

"I don't know why you're angry. But don't harm the innocent coffee machine, Beckett. Not it's fault you're a caffeine junkie who can't wait for it to settle before diving for your cuppa." His voice held both concern, and amusement.

She stopped breathing. By 'just one more stupid thing', she really hadn't meant realistic hallucinations of Castle - if that's what this was. Maybe she actually dropped the cup of coffee, then slipped on it to give herself a nice little concussion. Because if this was a realistic Castle hallucination? Well, the universe can't be that cruel, can it?

Castle - whom it seemed, was real after all; because no hallucination could possibly make her stop breathing, and start breathing again within the space of minutes. She hadn't been breathing for a minute? Castle must've taken her silence for pain, because the next thing she knew, her arm was being cradled in his large, soft palm as he gently tugged her to the sink. He turned the tap on and watched intently as the stream of cool running water cascaded over her hand.

Part of her still didn't believe he was her, and another part of her was busy trying to agree with that part. How could he be here? Why would he come, after the way she spoke to him earlier today? Why wasn't he saying anything? Why wasn't she?

While he was watching her hand with concern, she was staring at him - with disbelief probably evident on her face. Slowly he turned to face her, and when their eyes locked, she forgot all the questions. She forgot her stinging hand - which actually started feeling better the instant he held it under the cold water. She forgot her day.

He gave her a small smile, and sheepishly said, "Besides, I brought you coffee. Although if you don't want i - ooooompf," he had the breath knocked out of him when she shook off his grip and almost tackled him, hugging him in a tighter grip than either expected.

"Wow. You really love your coffee," he joked lamely, causing her to release what sounded like half sob, half chuckle, as she turned her face into the junction where his neck met his shoulder. He hugged her back just as tightly - or maybe a little less, he didn't want to squish her - broken ribs would make for an awful reunion story.

She breathed him in deeply, and felt his sigh of relief in return, before she finally spoke into the cocoon of his warmth - of his protection. "I'm sorry, Castle," she said shakily.

She pulled back, looked into his eyes, and apologized again - one single tear threatening to spill over onto her cheek, but somehow, somehow, she held it back. "I'm so sorry."

"Hey," he whispered, "It's okay. We're okay. You're entitled to a bad day."

"I shouldn't have taken it out on you. You make things better for me all the time, Castle, and - I didn't mean what I said today. I'm sorry."

"Okay. Okay. Apology accepted. Please stop saying you're sorry?" he said, smiling, looking at her in a way she couldn't even begin to manage describing.

So close, he was so close, and she couldn't help but glance at his lips, before she pulled back abruptly. Since when did they do this? Hug so openly, talk so openly.

She supposed the talking openly had been a long time coming, perpetuated by calls they'd been sharing over the past month. The banter had always been their thing – he was right. They talked easily, right since the beginning. He'd been one of the handful of people who even knew what her mother's death had meant to her – to see how deep those scars ran. Somehow, since the beginning, he got her to open up to him. But they weren't used to showing affection so easily. Usually they held back – though admittedly, sometimes barely so.

The feeling was so good though, and so right. To be engulfed in his being; to be surrounded by the scent of him. It felt right.

Suddenly though, she remembered at least a few of the questions that were running through her head before the sheer relief at the sight and feel of him. "What are you doing here?"

"A few seconds ago, I was hugging you. Before that I was trying to save that poor contraption from your ire."

"Don't be dense," she said, though with a smile.

He shrugged. "I needed a break from the summer break, so I took a summer break-break."

"Obviously," she laughed.

"And I missed Alexis. Plus I thought I might as well check on mother. Make sure my home is in one piece to come back to."

"Understandable," she said, smiling fondly.

"And I didn't want to leave things the way we did."

Her smile dropped, but before she could utter a word, her cut in.

"Don't apologize again, please? I got a hug out of the deal. I'm all good. Payment made in full."

She chuckled. "Is it that easy to make things up to you?"

"Pfft. No! I'm going easy on you because I've heard about the terrible day you've had."

"Heard?" she said suspiciously. "How'd you even know I'd be here right now?"

Ignoring her interruption, he plowed on. "Plus this is one of the really rare occasions where I'm not the one at fault. So naturally I had to investigate."

"Uh huh," she folded her arms over her chest and waited for him to go on. The man really talked a lot.

"I didn't know I'd stopping the assault on our coffee machine – "

"Would you stop saying that!" she glared at him.

"- just good instinct that made me buy you coffee, I guess."

"Thanks for that, by the way," she said, shyly, ducking her head so her hair shadowed her face.

"Always," he said softly. After a beat to let it sink in, he added, "I'm going to be here for the week. I'm going to spend as much time with Alexis as she'll allow me, and as much time with you as I can force you into letting me."

She smiled.

"Before I head back, I'm going to turn on that charm you mentioned earlier today, to try to convince you to come back with me for the weekend. Don't," he said as he saw her beginning to protest. "All I'm asking is for you to honestly consider it, and to give me a chance to convince you."

Her mouth opened and closed soundlessly before she finally gave him the benefit of the doubt. Here he was, standing in front of her after driving back from the Hamptons, with coffees, and smiles, and hugs and –

"Okay."

His answering beaming smile could have lit the entire city. "Okay?"

"You have your chance to convince me, Castle. I'll listen to what you have to say before I decide one way or the other."

"YES!" he fist pumped into the air and actually jumped like a little boy having won a race. And then he hugged her again.

And she couldn't find it in herself to mind. In fact, she melted into him. Maybe this hadn't been normal for them. They'd never been quite conventional. Maybe…this could be their new normal. It was a pretty damn good new normal.

"Oh, Kate. You won't regret this."

"I know."

He leaned back and smiled at her. For a minute, she thought he would ask her to go home. Perhaps he would be so bold as to drop her home. Instead what he said made her want to kiss him – right there in the middle of the night, in the empty bullpen.

"Come on," he said, tugging her hand – how did she not realize they were holding hands? Holy mother of – "Tell me about the case?" he asked tentatively while nodded towards her desk.

She graced him with a full, teeth-baring, eye-twinkling smile. "Yeah. It's a tough one," she said as she let him drag her towards the murder board.

"I eat 'tough' for breakfast," he said with a serious face, causing her to chuckle whilst rolling her eyes.

"I'm sure you do, Rambo."

They discussed the case till he knew the highlights of it. He put forth ridiculous theories. She dismissed all of them – though it did give her an idea that she said she'd follow through with the next day – later today since it was past midnight.

Initially he was uncertain of his decision – not to mention more than a little hurt; but he figured that she didn't mean the things she'd said, that she was having a tough time and being stubborn about it. He needed to show her that he could stick it out. Brave the storm. Pick correctly between defense and offense – all of it made worth it for the outcome. From where he was standing, next to his tired yet beautiful detective, it looked like an awfully good outcome. He was glad he made the call of coming back to New York – to Kate.

A/N: Was anyone surprised? If yes, then in a good way or bad? If no, then.. drats

Less banter, slight angst, more friendship and fluff. Tried to balance it. Sorry if it doesn't seem so. Also sorry if there are any gross errors. I didn't have the energy to go over it.