1st Castle fic. So this started as being the compulsory speculation fic about the 3: 13 picture—but then it ended up just becoming a story of its own. That kiss still happens in here—but this isn't actually how I think it will happen on the show. Nevertheless, this was fun to write. Frequently when I write these, I sort of "hear" the character voices speaking the dialogue I give them, and that didn't exactly happen for me with this one. Still, I think it's reasonably in character.

(This was having some weird URL problem that I don't understand, so I hope this fixes it. But it's not different.)

"I think Gina's about to dump me."

Castle and Beckett are sitting in one of the department vans late one January night—Beckett turns to look at Castle incredulously, but he nonchalantly looks off into the distance, as if he has said nothing remarkable. He takes another sip of his coffee, and turns around to face her, rubbing his palms together.

The two of them are on a stakeout—they are in the process of solving a case that, at this point, may or may not be related to her mother's murder. It is early in the investigation, and Beckett has promised herself that this isn't going to get the better of her again— that it won't make her fall apart again. That she'll function. A little earlier, Castle asked her what he could do to help her, and she had replied, "Just don't talk about it. Talk about something else. Anything else. Anything you want." She assumes that this is his something else, and, despite her surprise at the subject he has chosen, she smiles anyway at the effort.

"I'm quite sure of it, actually," he continues. "All the signs are there."

"You're awfully chipper for a guy who's sure he's about to get dumped on his ass." She veils her eyes, not wanting to betray too much interest in the state of his relationship—not wanting to have any interest in the state of his relationship.

"I like to put a brave face on things." He swallows more of his coffee. Beckett sits up straighter in her seat, wraps her jacket closer around herself, and blows onto her gloved hands.

"And why can't we have the heat on, again?" He pouts in her direction, and she rolls her eyes.

"Smoke from the tail pipe would give away our position. Welcome to the glamorous life, Castle."

He says nothing—just unpeels his scarf, and places it around her neck. "What makes you think I want this?" she snarks, but pulls it close. It smells like cinnamon and firewood and him, and she's surprised at how much she does want it.

He grins, appraising her with his head cocked to one side. "It suits you, Detective." He is half-flirting and half-earnest, an ever-present mirth dancing in his hazel eyes. It's the easily-given smile and the half-husky voice that have the tendency to steal her breath away, just for a moment, before she gathers herself again.

"So, why are you so sure you're about to get dumped? Besides your sparkling personality, I mean."

He fakes a wounded look. "We went to her cousin's wedding the other day."

"You told me. Alexis caught the bouquet."

He winces. "Do not remind me."

"Well, she has to start early if she wants to take up the Castle tradition like her old man, right?" As soon as she says this, she worries that it may be over the line. She finds that in these moments when she's most attracted to Castle, when she's afraid her thoughts might betray her, she tends to shove him backward with her sharpest verbal jabs. She doesn't really mean to most of the time—it is just there, a knee-jerk reaction, self-preservation as inborn in her as breathing.

"Funny," he replies wryly. "But no. Gina asked me, after the reception, if I could see us being married again." He laughs, but his smile is stilted. "You should have seen us married, Beckett—well, no, you shouldn't have. But it was a complete disaster. Start to finish. Arguments, silent treatments, broken dishes—"

"The whole nine," she says, nodding

"I never understood that saying. Why nine yards? Why not ten, or eight?"

"Aren't you supposed to be the resident wordsmith?" These are things that Castle usually knows. Origins of sayings, roots of words. He is nothing if not enthralled with language—it is one of the things she likes best about him. "Most people think it goes back to the end of World War 2. To go the full nine yards was to fire an aircraft's whole machine gun ammunition at the enemy."

"And?"

"The ammunition belt was nine yards."

"How do you know that?" He smile is wide and appreciative. "You just become hotter all the time."

She chooses to ignore this. "Continue."

Castle shakes his head. "I just can't see myself being married to her again. She hasn't returned my calls in days." He sighs. "So begins the deathwatch." He has leaned over some in the passenger seat, and looks her directly in the eyes. She swallows, willfully takes in a breath, and tightens his scarf around her neck.

"I'm sorry, Castle," she says, and she is. She doesn't particularly like Gina—all of the times she has met the woman, they've had little in common—but she dislikes she forlorn look in Castle's eyes more.

He shrugs and shakes his head again, as if he is trying to shake off an unpleasant thought. "I don't understand what all of the fuss is about, anyway," he says, his voice falsely cheery. "I've been married a few times, and believe me, that whole forever thing? It's overrated." She doesn't completely believe that he believes what he is saying. Castle, who wants her to believe in magic, Castle, who adores his daughter and opens his home to his eccentric mother—is the kind of man who believes that love has a transformative power.

Still, she replies, "Maybe I agree with you."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "You don't," he says. "That's why you broke up with pretty-boy Demming, isn't it? You didn't think it could last forever." That's so far out of left-field that she has no idea how to respond to it—and to that fact that he is actually wrong. He still has no idea that her splitting up with Demming had anything to do with him, and she has no intention of letting him in on it.

"Shut up," she says.

He shoots her a cheerful grin. "You never did tell me about that. As your friend who will soon be heartlessly broken up with, you have the duty—yes, the duty—to tell me how your last relationship ended. It's in the handbook."

"The handbook, huh? And do we also get pedicures together and eat pints of haagen-dazs while watching Sex and the City?"

Castle grins wickedly. "No. We just have sleepovers." He casts a flirtatious look in her direction. "Pillow fights."

"Perv."

"Beckett, you injure me."

They are both silent for a few moments, before Castle says, "No, I think you broke up with him because you realized you loved someone else." Count on Castle not to let a subject go once it came up. "Someone in the office, someone you're close with, someone you see every day…"

"Esposito will be really bummed you figured us out," she deadpans, rolling her eyes.

"I was going to say Lanie," he replies, eyes dancing. "Much hotter."

"Clearly," she says, smothering a laugh in her hand, and looking out of the window.

There are a few more moments of silence, and Beckett listens to the sounds of the gusty wind outside, and her own shallow breaths. Castle's hands are folded in his lap—it is the most still she has ever seen him—and the contented smile has slipped from his mouth.

"You believe in forever, though, right, Beckett?" He sounds almost vulnerable. Castle, this notorious Park Avenue playboy, who can have almost any woman he chooses, almost—sounds tired. He sounds real, in a way she has never heard from him before.

"You do. You believe."

He shrugs his shoulders equitably. "And you?"

"I don't know. I want to…" she doesn't know how a conversation with Castle has suddenly become so serious. She wearily leans her head against the car window. "I think I understand. You want the reassurance that someone will love you forever. You want to think you're the kind of person who can be loved forever." She pauses. "Especially if—" she breaks off, and adjusts the watch at her wrist—"If you've lost someone."

She shuts her eyes briefly, and tries to re-center herself. She'd promised herself she wouldn't be like this again. That the mere mention of her mother's death wouldn't start making her question everything again—her love life, her family, herself. But here it is. Some things, she thinks, can never really change.

When she re-opens her eyes, she finds Castle looking at her, gently brushing his thumb over her knee. There is no sympathy in his face, no pity—only support.

"We'll get him, Kate. I promise you, we will."

Somehow, she's never been more sure of that than she is at this moment. Even counting those early years when all she did was obsess over the case—when she felt like she'd die if she didn't solve it. Even then, actually figuring out what happened seemed like an abstract concept—she couldn't touch it, couldn't imagine it.

But in front of her, Castle's sensitive face is profoundly comforting—the gentleness in his eyes, the soft lines around his mouth. He is warm, leaning toward her intently. She believes him. She believes him so completely that it scares her.

"Right, Castle, because you're my lucky charm," she says, because she has to say something—and she regrets the words almost as soon as they leave her mouth. She remembers his apology after giving her the money to trap her mother's killer; she remembers him in the precinct with the gun to his head. She didn't mean to bring up any of that, but with her clumsy sarcasm, these are the images that come.

He removes his hand from her leg suddenly, darts out of the car, and she sighs, shoves open her door, and jogs after him.

"Castle! Castle, I didn't mean—" He is looking out onto the sidewalk with his head tilted to one side, facing away from her.

"Castle, I didn't mean that."

He whirls around. "Mean what?" he asks, nonplussed.

"I didn't mean—I didn't want to offend—" she can't seem to finish a sentence. He was being so nice to her, and she finds it so hard to accept what he gives her. Deep down, she still feels a vestige of the notion that she can trust him in the field, but she can't trust him with her thoughts; she can't trust him with her heart. She can't trust him with her. Not completely.

"You're afraid you offended me?" Castle places both hands on her shoulders and actually laughs, as if to say that she has never worried about such a thing before. But he's wrong.

"Well, you suddenly ran out of the car—" she hates how stupid she sounds.

"I thought I saw something."

"So you leave the car? Have you never seen a stakeout scene in a cop movie? You stay in the car. In the car, good. Out of the car, bad." She good-naturedly rolls her eyes at him, ready to return to the banter they know so well, but he doesn't grin at her. He takes a step closer, so that he is standing in her space. She tilts her head up challengingly, to look at him full on.

"Don't you ever stop arguing, Kate?" he murmurs.

She releases a breath. It's been so long. Not since—not since they teased each other like this, not since she felt those underpinnings of mutual attraction. That happens daily, it always has. If she is honest with herself, it probably always will. But it's been so long since she felt like it could actually happen. Like it might be inevitable. (Nothing in this life guaranteed but death, taxes, and the warmth she feels when Castle smiles.) Her defenses are down—she is tired, it's so late, and they are alone. They haven't been alone in a long time, not completely, anyway. But here, in this warehouse, their cell phones left behind in the van, they are. It's just them. She hadn't known how much she missed it.

He is standing there, searching her face with his eyes, and she realizes that his neck is trembling as if he is straining himself backward to keep away from her. Another night, and she might have just turned away, made some clever remark, and fled back into the car. It would have been difficult to do, but it also would have come as naturally to her as breathing. She is so used to putting him off, putting these moments off, that it fits her like a second skin.

Only she doesn't move. And neither does he. She feels her eyes flicker down to his mouth, and that little gesture undoes him—the next thing she knows, he is tugging her to him, and kissing her hard.

His hands are lightly tugging her long hair, and his lips are soft, insistent. She can feel the desperation in it—his and hers—and all she can hear in her brain is finallyfinallyfinally. Over a year of witty banter, flirtatious repartee, and inside jokes, and that's what it comes down to—raw, unexpected need. This was what she was after, all those months ago, when she broke up with Demming—this is what she needed. She wanted to be able to close her eyes and almost lose herself in someone. She has it now, with Castle's hands desperately gripping her shoulders, the smell of his cologne—no longer feeling the chattering-cold of the winter night.

Her hands, previously hanging nervously at her sides, make their way up over his shoulders, and then onto his neck. She presses into him hard, and can no longer pretend that this was some crazy idea of his, that she is a passive participant—she is just as culpable as he is, now. She is just as enthralled as he is.

And then she remembers.

It was months ago, that brief beautiful moment when she had just left Demming, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, this could all work out. She never expected to go running off into the sunset with Castle without issue—such romantic fancies didn't suit her, or him, either—but she thought she could have this. Because Castle had told her, barely two weeks before, that the heart wants what it wants—and in that instant, she knew exactly what hers was demanding. There was a moment when she thought it could be that simple.

But there is Josh now, and Gina—this thing with Castle is infinitely messier than it once was. It was their time, before—it might be the time again, in the future. But it isn't time now. She is tired, she is overworked, she is missing her mother and longing for her advice more than she has in ten years. She's too frazzled for this—it's the wrong time. She has been a cop long enough to know the importance of timing in investigation, in interrogation, in life. She knows that poor timing can lead to unforeseen complications, to disaster.

Beckett pulls back a little, and feels his fingers gently tracing lines along her cheek. His eyes are still shut tight; his breathing is heavy.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, his eyes still closed. She swallows. It is still so tempting—he is right here in front of her, she can almost feel the longing radiating off of him—so, so close.

"I can't," she replies. "I need—" She stops. She doesn't want to finish that sentence; she doesn't want to even finish that thought in her head. She doesn't want to need something that could be so transient, so fleeting.

"Beckett, were you going to say you need me?" His voice has taken back on some of its usual irony. She firmly shakes her head.

"Absolutely not."

He lets out a sharp laugh. "Of course not."

Their close proximity seems to come over them both suddenly, and they both jump back.

She looks over at him and is silent, her eyes wide, trying like hell to make this make sense. Trying to wrap that moment up neatly, but finds it just doesn't fit. Trying to put away the memory of that incredible longing she had felt, humming through her arms and legs. It's hard to put that away because she still feels it now, not even touching him. It's still there.

"It's okay, Kate," he says, and she's not sure if he's trying to convince her or himself. "It was just a moment. Moments—happen."

Moments happen. It is such a banal way to put it, but she nods her head anyway. If she knows herself, she will eventually catalogue this in some way—that he was upset he was about to get dumped, and she was trying to cope with thoughts of her mother. The pure human desperation of the moment—the memory of the longing she had felt for him—that will fade.

The haze in her brain is clearing. The buzz in her limbs subsides. She feels like she can suddenly see her surroundings again—they are in sharp focus, and the air is numbingly chill. She moves to pull his scarf closer around herself, and then suddenly checks.

"Here," she says, attempting to hand it over.

He shakes his head. "Keep it. It looks better on you. I wasn't lying when I said it suited you. "

"Everything looks better on me than you, Castle."

He considers for a moment, placing a friendly arm around her shoulders, and leads her back to the van.

"I don't think I can argue with that."