Chapter 10

Early in the morning since Castle was wide awake with nothing better to do, he was attempting to do research. 'Attempting' - really, he was getting nowhere. It was unusually early for him to go to the precinct. Though he'd have loved to spend every waking minute hovering around Kate, convincing Kate, annoying Kate, embarrassing Kate, making Kate laugh, or any such activity generally involving Kate; he thought it might be better to give her some space to recover. Not too much though, he'd show up at his regular time.

In lieu of showing up at the precinct like a puppy on a leash, eagerly wagging his tongue – oh, how'd he'd love to do things with his tongue. That would be a good activity generally involving Kate. – he was researching…he couldn't remember what he was researching. But one thing led to another, and somehow he'd landed up on a picture of a goat attempting to eat a shoe. He frowned in confusion, and went back a couple of links to get back on track.

Of course, his concentration kept getting interrupted by visions of her. The memory of the taste of her lingered on. Though he'd brushed at night, and in the morning, and had breakfast – but no. No, no, no. His cortex was convincing his taste buds that he could still taste her, and that damned strawberry shake. Bless that strawberry shake. He should buy strawberries.

He should buy strawberries and chocolates and stalk up his Hamptons place and the loft for when they get back.

His eyes widened when he realized what he was thinking. Gah! She'd kill him. Thank God she couldn't read minds. Could she? Eh. At least he wasn't right next to her. Mind reading must work like Bluetooth, or wireless technology. Or so he assumed. Hoped. If she read his mind right now, his ear wouldn't be the only appendage being twisted. He winced in anticipatory pre-consequential pain. You know, just in case she could read minds. He needed to clear his mind. Be a ninja, Rick. Be Zen. Maybe he should take up yoga.

Yoga. Makes a person flexible. She practices yoga, doesn't she?

He shook his head, and blinked away the images. Those were not zen-ny thoughts.

But! Kate, and strawberries, and chocolate, and yoga and KATE! Unable to keep the thoughts from his mind, he gave a tortured, lovesick sigh, while staring blankly at his laptop. The screen showed a picture of a handsome young stripper cop.

That was when Alexis walked in.

He hadn't noticed until she cleared her throat, and looked from him to the screen and back with her eyebrows raised. "Umm," she started, "I'm just going to head to school."

"I'm – this isn't – I was doing research!" he stuttered.

"Uh huh."

"Really! This isn't what it looks like. See, I was looking for a young male cop –"

"There are some things a daughter doesn't need to know, father."

"Noooo. Let me finish. I was looking for a picture of a young male cop so that I could write a description for a background character in the book."

"You couldn't come up with a description of your own?"

"I was trying to be authentic."

She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes.

"And I was being lazy?" he added sheepishly with a grin.

Alexis rolled her eyes – and then that reminded him of Beckett – and finally broke out a huge grin. Sly little thing knew he did all kinds of odd research. He narrowed his eyes and got up from his chair to give her a noogie, and then proceeded to tickle her till she laughed hysterically. "Okay, okay, let go! I surrender!"

"Nuh uh! Having fun at your old man's expense," he said.

"Haha – I'm sorry!" she said between gasps, "If you don't let go –"

"You'll ground me?" he grinned.

"No! I'll tell Beckett about that photo you have of her!"

He stopped immediately, and gasped in indignation, holding his hand to his chest. "You wouldn't! My own daughter would betray me so? I never thought I'd see the day."

His dramatics did little to deter her, she only looked amused. "It's good to have leverage."

"Huh. How'd you get so devious?" he scowled, and grumbled.

"Like begets like," she said, narrowing her eyes.

"Touché," he said with a wide grin, and added a fake sniff. "I'm so proud."

"Thank heavens. Now, father. I've got to leave. Are you going to be okay? How come you're doing research so early anyway? That doesn't seem like you."

"Hey! I can start work early."

"But you don't usually."

"True."

"And I thought the point of you being here was to take a break from the break."

"Speaking of which, you want me to drop you to school, pumpkin?" he offered sweetly.

"No, Paige will be here in a minute. We're going to walk it up, get some exercise."

"Oh. Okay, then."

"Which means I have a minute, so don't change the subject."

"I'm not changing the subject," he said; his shifty eyes giving him away.

"Dad, are you hiding?"

"There's no one here, who would I hide from?"

Deflection works sometimes.

"You're hiding, metaphorically. From whom? Gina?"

Deflection was not working.

"Pfft. No. She sanctioned my break when I told her it was better for my writing – not that she controls me."

"Sure, whatever you say," Alexis said flatly, "Not Gina, then. Hmm…"

"I'm not hiding," he said. "Aren't you getting late?"

"No, Paige will give me a missed call when she gets here," she waved him off distractedly, and hummed in concentration, as if solving a puzzle. "You're pretending to do research," she ticked off on her fingers.

"Really doing research," he cut in, waving to his laptop.

"You're up really early, but still at home."

"Thank you, Captain Obvious."

"And you're sighing longingly at the picture of a young handsome cop."

"I was not sighing longingly. I do not sigh longingly. That would not be macho."

She snorted. "Yeah, you're all about being macho."

He looked affronted.

"Oh my god!" she yelled suddenly.

"What? What?"

She grinned a grin that looked like his grin when he figured out a particularly good way of irking someone. "You're hiding from Detective Beckett!"

"What? No. Me? No. What? That's absurd," he said, fingers tugging at his collar.

"What did you do? Should I expect her to arrest you again? Dad, you really need to raise my allowance if you expect me to keep bailing you out."

"I keep offering to raise your allowance. You keep turning it down."

"That's because I don't need it. But if you're hiding from Beckett, I'm rethinking that decision."

"I'm not hiding!" he repeated, exasperated.

She just continued to smile while he glared at her. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Fine! You win! I'm hiding from Beckett!"

"I thought so," she said, pleased with her sleuthing skills. Her phone chimed. "Ah, Paige is here. Stop hiding, dad, it isn't macho." With that, she kissed him on the cheek and ran out of the house quickly.

He sighed. "They grow up so quickly," he said aloud to an empty room, before shutting his laptop and getting ready to head in to the precinct. No more hiding.

Kate had been staring at the murder board for a good three hours. Fortunately, no one of consequence had been around for the first hour and half or so. Being caught staring at the murder board was not unusual for her. Often Ryan or Esposito, even Montgomery had walked in to find her looking at it, eyes wandering – sometimes rapidly from one point to the next, sometimes slowly moving through the information, trying to find the odd sock – and they'd either leave her alone for a while, or shake her out of it should they feel the need to. But – staring blankly at just one point for the larger period of three hours? Even she thought she was going insane.

Ugh! All his fault.

Why on Earth did he kiss her last night? Why hadn't he kissed her like that before last night? Why did it feel so damn good? Why, why, why?

He hadn't even called this morning to let her know if he'd be coming in. It's not that he usually called to say as much. Sometimes he did, sometimes he didn't. The protocol was that she would call him if there was a new case or a break in a current case. There wasn't. Because she was staring at the murder board blankly for three hours, thinking about him.

She huffed and moved to sit in her chair. And let her head fall to the desk in frustration. Ouch.

Without lifting her head, she moved her hand to grab her phone (to check if she had any messages from anyone. Anyone being Castle) which is when her all her senses were over loaded with him. Because she was grabbing his hand – she was sure of it before she even looked up – smelling their coffee and his cologne, and hearing him chuckle. When she looked up, she saw his smile, and bit her lip to contain hers.

"Hey," he said, and her insides melted.

"Hey," she said, smiling.

After a minute of staring at each other, he finally opened his mouth. "Umm. I'll give you back my hand in a minute if you let me take my jacket off first," he said with a smile.

She yanked her hand from his, as if burnt, and looked away, thoroughly embarrassed.

He wasn't being smug about it, but yeah. Holding his hand in open view of the bullpen. Fodder for the gossipmongers.

"I didn't know if you'd be coming in," she said softly.

"Why wouldn't I? Should I not have? Do you want me to leave?" he said, sounding sad and uncertain.

"No! No. That's not what I meant. I was just asking."

"Oh. Okay, then. Good."

"Good."

"Yeah," he said, nodding.

"God!" she said exasperatedly, covering her eyes with her hand. "Why is this so awkward?"

He chuckled, relieved. "It is a little awkward, isn't it?"

"Little?" she repeated skeptically.

He grinned, and that put her at ease. "Can we go to the break room to talk, just for a minute?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess that would be good."

They closed the door after entering the break room, and thankfully, the blinds were already drawn.

He turned around to face her, confirmed that they were left to their own devices, and then spoke up. "Hi," he said.

She laughed. "Thought we covered that already."

He just shrugged. "Should I have called to tell you I was coming in, Kate?"

"No, I guess not. You don't usually. I just –" she trailed off.

He put his hand on her arm and slid it down into hers, raising goose bumps along the way. "Tell me," he said softly.

She gulped, and looked into his eyes. "I just didn't know – don't know – where we stand. After last night."

"Beside each other, always."

"Rick," she breathed out.

"You're still you, and I'm still me. We're making it awkward unnecessarily. It doesn't have to be."

"We're still us," she repeated, with her eyes closed.

"Yeah, and we're also us, now. And we can do this now," he said, before leaning in for a slow, languid kiss. His lips moved over hers soundly, and she opened up for him with a sigh, giving and taking. It was different than yesterday. There was no pretext, there were no shakes. Just them. Them, and it was still delicious. His hand moved to angle her face, and then cradle it, while hers skimmed up his ribs. Gently, they pulled apart. "Wow."

"Yeah," she said breathlessly, leaning her forehead on his. But then she stepped back, looking like she didn't want to, which is why he beamed. "Precinct," she said.

"Got it. I couldn't get any work done," he said shaking his head.

"I thought you were taking a break," she said in confusion.

"I was trying to distract myself from thinking about you."

"God forbid you do that when I ask you to."

"You never really mean it." He shrugged.

"How would you know?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"I just do. In reality, you love the creepy staring, admit it."

"It's creepy!"

"And yet you love it," he said with a nod.

Sighing, she said, "I couldn't either."

"Stare at me? You have my full permission. I don't mind."

"I'm sure you don't," she laughed, before clarifying, "I couldn't get any work done either. All I could think about was you."

The answering smile he gave her could've lit the block, or saved the city, or driven a person crazy. It drove her crazy. After about a minute of it, she rolled her eyes, and said, "Stop smiling so much, Castle. It was unproductive, and now I'm feeling guilty."

"Ah no, don't do that," he said in despair, "Thinking about me should not be termed unproductive, or lead to guilt. It was only a distraction because you didn't know where we stand. But now you do."

"Now we do," she corrected.

"Yeah."

"We kiss," she said with a shy smile, "hug, and hold hands."

"Only with each other?"

She laughed and playfully tapped him on the back of his head, before rubbing the spot. "Thought that was a given."

"Just clarifying, for future reference. And ow! That hurt."

"It did not, you big baby," she said fondly.

"I like it when you call me baby," he said with a smile.

She took her hand off his head – hadn't realized that she was carding her fingers through his oh-so-soft hair.

"I was calling you a baby."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," he said, "I'll take what I can get."

"Hmm," she said, suddenly looking serious, and he got worried.

"Kate?"

"I need you not to be a distraction, Castle."

He smiled in understanding, and got into her space again, to place a sweet kiss on her cheek. "I promise not to distract you at work, Kate. Outside of work, I give no guarantees," he winked, "but when you're at work, it'll be the same as always. We'll do this together and we'll do it well. Like it or not, Katherine Beckett, I'm your plucky sidekick."

"Plucky sidekick always get killed."

"Partner, then," he said confidently.

She nodded, "Partner."

"And now, your partner is going to re-heat your coffee, and help you solve this thing so that he can continue to woo you."

Her laughter rang out, and caused his smile to bloom, full on with his eyes crinkling. "Woo me?"

"Mhmm. Come to the Hamptons with me, Kate."

"You're relentless."

"Persistent."

"Incorrigible," she said.

"Dedicated," he defended.

"Insane."

"Resilient,"

"Yeah," she agreed. "Come on, let's solve this thing, and I'll think about it."

"YES!" he said, jumping in the air like a little boy.

"Shhh! Rick, precinct!"

"YES!" he whispered instead, but with no less enthusiasm, getting her to smile fondly. This time she leaned to steal a quick kiss, before turning around to leave the break room, leaving him to gather himself before following her.

Ryan withdrew his head from staring around the corner, still looking in Beckett's direction and said, "All clear. She's gone back to her desk."

"Detectives!" came Montgomery's voice.

Ryan and Esposito suddenly stood in attention, a stethoscope dumbly hanging from Esposito's hand.

"Sir," they greeted in unison.

He wordlessly pointed at the stethoscope.

"Ah! Uh. Dr. Parish left her stethoscope at the crime scene the other day, we thought we'd hand it to Beckett to give to her."

"Dr. Parish, our ME?" Montgomery asked with a raised brow.

"Yeah, that's her."

"Dr. Parish, our Medical Examiner, who exams our victims – dead victims – left her stethoscope at the crime scene?" he said, and Esposito paled.

"Uh. She likes to be sure?" Ryan added with an innocent smile.

He rolled his eyes. "Get back to work! And give me that!" he said sternly.

"Yes, sir," Esposito said, handing it over.

"We'll just buy her a new one," Ryan said.

"Yeah, you can keep that."

"She probably won't even miss it."

He leveled a stare at them. "What's that? Ryan, did you hear that? I think Beckett needs us."

"Yeah, yeah. We'll just – go. There. Now," Ryan said.

They turned around and almost ran for it, like dogs with their tails between their legs, leaving Montgomery with a pleased grin, twirling the end of the stethoscope. "I still got it."

A/N: :D Long chapter to make up for the last one. Because I love you. (Even though ya'll were plenty happy with the smoochies in chapter 9.)