Author's Note: I feel like I can never say this enough - thank you all so much for your lovely reviews/favorites/comments and for sharing the links on tumblr and twitter. I appreciate your support so much!

Chapter 13

Dinner was delicious, as was the bottle of wine they cracked open with it, one glass with their meal, a second immediately afterward. They settled onto the sofa shoulder to shoulder, clinked their wine glasses lovingly before taking a sip. But without the distraction of cooking dinner, idle chit chat over the hot meal, she could tell Castle's mind was wrapped up in the case once again.

Kate nudged his side gently. He startled, turned to her with questioning eyes.

"You seem a little lost," she offered by way of explanation.

"Just thinking about the case."

She hummed a reply.

When ten minutes passed and he hadn't so much as spoken a word, she finally asserted herself. "Castle, please, can we just drop it for the night."

"Sorry, this case, it's just..." he sighed heavily, trailed off.

"I know, I'm frustrated too," she agreed. "But for tonight, let's just be us, okay? And tomorrow morning, we can head in early and get back to work. Track down Sara's friends and see what they know."

He nodded absently; she was pretty sure he wasn't really even listening. A pained, disappointed sigh was his only response.

"Hey, you okay?"

Castle shook his head, shrugged.

"It's more than just the case, isn't it?" she mused, things beginning to fall into place.

He sighed again, nodded reluctantly.

"Alexis?"

A shake of his head.

"What is it, Castle?" Kate probed gently.

He released a long exhale, buying himself time before finally speaking. "I just wanted to prove that we could do this."

Her forehead creased in confusion. "Do what?"

"Be married and keep solving cases. I love that part of our life and I didn't want anything to change."

Ah. That explained his relentless determination to solve this case.

"It doesn't have to," Kate promised.

"But it has," he replied, distraught. "We haven't exactly been...professional. And it's getting in the way."

"I..."

"What if the crime scene had been dangerous?" he interrupted. "What if..."

"Castle."

"We aren't on top of our game."

Kate sighed. She knew he was right. Her normally carefully bottled up control had all but evaporated since their return, and she seemed incapable of reigning herself in. Not that he was faring any better. "You're right. We aren't."

He shook his head. "We can't keep doing that. One of these days..."

"We'll figure it out," she assured him. "Maybe it'll be difficult at first, and maybe there'll be days where you stay home. But nothing has to change, Castle. Not if we don't want it to."

"Me staying home is a change."

"It's only temporary," she reminded him. "Just while you get some writing done and we find our bearings again."

He still regarded her skeptically.

"Hey," Kate encouraged, rising to her knees and swinging one leg over his until she was straddling his thighs on the couch. "I'll be more professional," she whispered, looping her arms around his neck. "Starting tomorrow."

He nodded, hands coming to span her hips, strong and warm against her skin as her shirt bunched up above his touch.

"I promise," she guaranteed him. "I will. We just need to settle into a slightly new normal."

Castle's eyes seemed to clear slightly at that.

"We'll figure it out," she repeated.

"We will," he murmured in agreement. Kate offered an approving smile in return.

"In the meantime," she snagged her lower lip between her teeth, eyes flicking down to his mouth, back to his eyes.

"In the meantime..." he echoed.

"There are some very unprofessional things I'd like to do to you."

He raised an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

She leaned in, tongue peeking out to wet her lips as she neared, and he felt his eyes fall close as her warm breath mingled with his. "Yeah."

They entered the precinct the next morning side by side, but with a carefully maintained amount of space between them. Their shoulders didn't brush as they stepped out of the elevator and Castle turned and headed for the break room without a lingering trail of his fingers over her arm or lower back.

She missed his touch immensely but forced herself to ignore the seeming emptiness.

When he reappeared at her desk a few minutes later, he passed her a mug of coffee, careful not to brush her fingers with his own. She offered him a genuine smile, eyes holding only briefly before flicking back to her desktop. She raised the mug to her lips, smiling around the ceramic rim as the hot liquid washed down her throat, rich and delicious. Just the way she liked it. She chanced a glance at her husband, but he was preoccupied with his own caffeine fix.

Castle set aside his mug long enough to discard his jacket and sink into his chair before turning his attention away from his wife and to the murder boards.

Kate spent a few minutes checking her email, scanning the CSU reports from their search of the sports bar and bathroom. A public place always meant a lot more work combing through all the dozens of fingerprints and other potential forensic evidence, not to mention the nasty conglomeration of substances present in the typical public bathroom. But despite the length of the report, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. No hidden signs of a struggle, and traces of blood found on the walls weren't a match to Annalise.

Background checks on employees from the bar had only turned up a couple of traffic tickets and a public urination violation - none of which particularly hinted towards violence or anything of the sort.

With no leads from either set of reports, Kate reached for her phone and dialed Sara's number. The girl answered on the third ring, sounding just as distraught as she'd appeared the last time they'd visited her. She was, however, able to pass along the names and contact information of the three friends she'd run into that night; Mark Johnson, Travis Duncan, and Caroline Owens.

"Wait," Castle interjected, leaning over his wife's shoulder to read the list of names and phone numbers hastily jotted down on a pad of paper. "Didn't we talk to a Caroline Owens at the sports bar yesterday?"

She consulted the list of background checks, sifting through the pages and scanning the names. "Yeah, there." Castle's finger shot out, pausing her search. "Wait, go back a page." Kate obliged. "And there. Travis Duncan. I don't think we talked to him, but he works there too.

She pursed her lips as she scanned the pages. "That can't be a coincidence."

"Thank you for coming in," Kate greeted gently, indicating for the three young adults to take a seat in the conference room.

They sank into chairs, folding their jackets across their laps. "So we're here because of Sara?" Caroline inquired curiously.

"Actually, it's Sara's roommate," Castle corrected as Kate slid a photograph across the coffee table. "Jenna."

Caroline tucked a strand of straight blonde hair behind her ear, leaned forward for a closer look. "I don't know her. Is she okay?"

"She was murdered," Kate answered. "The night you were out with Sara."

"That's awful." Caroline glanced to her friends, who looked equally shocked.

"Murdered?" Mark interjected.

"Right after you all left the bar," Castle explained.

"Did any of you know her?"

All three shook their heads. "Sorry, no," Mark verbalized.

"I didn't even know Sara that well, to be honest," Caroline added. "Travis just introduced us a few months back."

"Did anyone see anything out of the ordinary while you were there?" Castle asked, eyes falling on each person in turn.

"I...I don't think so," Caroline answered.

"I remember her talking to a girl I didn't know," Mark recalled. He gestured to the photograph. "I guess it was probably her."

"Did anything seem odd? Could you hear what they were talking about?"

He shook his head. "It was crowded. And I only saw her for a bit." He turned to Travis. "You're the one who talked to Sara, right?"

"Yeah but I never met her friend."

"And then you invited her out with you, is that correct?" Kate asked.

Caroline nodded. "Some place quieter. So we could catch up, you know?"

"Just Sara? Not Jenna?"

"Sara invited her. Said she didn't wanna come," Travis offered.

"And then what happened?" Kate asked, pen hovering over her pad of paper, poised to reconstruct what she could of the timeline.

Mark shrugged. "We left."

"Right away?"

"Pretty much," Caroline agreed. "Why?"

"Well, because Jenna died shortly after."

"And what? You think one of us had something to do with it?" Travis burst out angrily.

"We're just trying to figure out what happened," Kate placated. "And the timing of events is important."

"Right, sorry," he replied gruffly. The photo from his personnel file confirmed that this was definitely the same Travis Duncan that worked at the sports bar. It was suspicious at best, and he definitely wasn't winning himself any bonus points right now. Then again, Caroline's caring, open, wanting to help out in any way possible act was pretty transparent as well.

"I'm sorry, I wish I could be more helpful," Caroline offered gently, and Castle rolled his eyes. "But we were only there for twenty minutes or so."

"I have to ask, but where were you between two and four a.m. that night?"

"We swung by this club on Delancey for a few minutes and then went back to Mark's place," Caroline answered.

"All three of you?"

Mark nodded in corroboration.

"Anything else you can think of?"

"Sorry, no," Caroline answered, the others nodding in agreement.

"Okay, well thank you for your time," Kate said graciously. She rose, passing a card to each of them. "If you think of anything else, please give me a call."

They stood, paused to don their jackets before filing out the conference room where uniforms were waiting to escort them to the elevator.

"So what do you think?" Castle asked the moment they were out of earshot.

"I think that with all the people there, it'll be hard to verify their alibis," she answered truthfully.

"But what about Caroline and Travis?"

"I think it's definitely suspicious." Castle snorted. "But we don't have any proof it was either of them. For all we know, someone else set one of them up to take the fall."

"Or they were in on it together."

"Even if they were, what's their motive?"

"Jealousy? Who knows. They're obviously hiding something."

Kate shook her head. "Well, we'll have unis try to verify their alibis and maybe they'll shake something up in the process."

At least, she hoped that was what happened. They were starting to run out of options.

Thoughts?