A/N: Thank you Mandy & Anna for being so amazing.
PREVIOUSLY:
"I thought your character worked with the CIA," Ryan commented, sounding confused. "Why do you want to shadow some NYPD detectives?"
Kate, who had just ended her phone call, piped up, "Trust me, you don't want to know. It will spoil the next book." She then started making her way towards the elevator, but added over her shoulder, "Come on, Castle."
Already rushing after her, the writer asked in a shout, "Where are we going?"
"To see Lanie about our victim. She's got some news for us."
Esposito and Ryan stared at one another while Rick continued his stride towards the elevator, smirking to himself.
He was in.
Even though the sound of opening doors caught her attention, Lanie only turned around to see who arrived after her friend's "Hey, Lanie, you called with news?" echoed through the sterile room.
"Girl, I swear you…" Lanie trailed off once she was faced with the sight of Richard Castle standing beside Kate Beckett. "Castle? What are you doing here?"
Instead of feeling self-conscious or even unwelcomed, the novelist actually beamed. "You know, I really enjoy the fact that everyone associated with the NYPD calls me Castle. It makes me feel like a real cop."
Amused by his attitude but determined not to let it show, Beckett was quick to shoot him down as she joked, "You're not even a real consultant, Castle. Settle down."
"Ouch. Cheap shot, Beckett," he retorted feigning hurt.
Watching the two of them bantering, Lanie couldn't stop herself. "Okay, what's going on?"
Castle looked even more proud of himself. "Didn't you hear? I'm shadowing Detective Beckett for research."
"Right…" the M.E. said, clearly unconvinced. Pointing to the writer, she turned to Beckett. "What's he doing here?"
"I'm serious," Castle cut in, affronted. "You know how helpful I can be."
"I know how much you can annoy my girl here, if that's what you mean."
"Lanie, come on…" he let the words hang in the air, putting on a sad puppy dog face for the M.E.
She turned to Beckett again. "He's serious."
Beckett tried her best to look annoyed instead of charmed. "Don't even get me started."
When Lanie turned to him, shocked, Castle smirked like a little boy. "This is going to be fun!"
"You do know why he's doing this, right?" Lanie asked her friend the moment Castle stepped out of the autopsy room to talk on his phone.
Kate knew where this conversation was headed; a big no-no for her at this point. "Lanie…"
"The guy's working hard to get you, Kate."
"Oh, please," she tried to lie. "He's just doing research!"
"Yes, that's why he picked a gorgeous, single female detective to shadow – for research."
"Actually, he said it's because I'm tall."
Her friend looked at her pointedly. "Honey, please. You remember him asking you out, don't you?"
Beckett felt awful for lying to her friend, but some things were better left unsaid for now. Yet, there was something she was dying to talk about. "He's writing a book about me, Lanie. A new fictional character. Based on me."
Lanie heard the tone in her friend's voice – a mixture of amazement and flattery. "He's getting through to you, isn't he?"
Kate immediately floundered, but, lucky for her, Castle came back before the conversation could go any further. "What did I miss?"
"Nothing," Beckett quickly replied. "I was just waiting for you to come back so we could go back to the precinct. Lanie's given us all she had already, and the boys should be done interrogating our suspect by now. So…"
"Don't think you're getting away this easily," Lanie said and Kate's heart quickened. During the split second her friend was quiet, she thought the M.E. might say something to Castle about the book he was planning to write.
What came out of Lanie's mouth was much worse, though. "So, did you decide what we're doing tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow?" Castle was unsuspectingly curious.
"Lanie…" Kate muttered in warning.
"No, no, no! Kate Beckett, don't you dare try to squirm your way out of this," the M.E. announced, misunderstanding Beckett's reasons for hesitating.
Not that she could know Beckett was trying to hide her plans the following evening from Castle. "Lanie…" She tried a little more forcefully, in hope of stopping her friend anyway.
There was no stopping Lanie, though. "Tomorrow's your birthday and we're all going out to celebrate!"
Kate sucked in a breath, trying her best to hide from Lanie the fact that her friend had probably just opened the floodgates to a tsunami of questions from Castle. Wearily, she turned to look at his face.
Oddly enough, the writer only had one question for her. "Tomorrow's your birthday?"
It broke her heart when Kate realized the surprise in his voice didn't completely manage to hide the hurt he was feeling.
The first thing Beckett noticed when she got into her car was the silence. Castle was sitting right there, in the passenger's seat next to her, yet he still hadn't said a word since his noncommittal "sure" in the morgue.
"Sure." That had been the only word he had uttered after Beckett had invited him to join her for celebratory drinks the following evening with a few of her colleagues from the precinct. The only word he had spoken since she had confirmed her birthday was that Tuesday.
He was clearly trying hard to hold in whatever it was he was thinking, and Kate couldn't take it anymore. So, instead of turning on the car and taking them back to the precinct, she turned to Castle.
Before she could say anything, he spoke up, "So… your birthday, huh?"
She noticed that he was putting up a front for her. "Yes," she admitted after a while.
"Big celebration?"
"Rick…"
"You weren't going to tell me, were you?" He asked her, interrupting whatever it was she was about to say. Then he turned to look into her eyes. "If Lanie hadn't unwittingly ratted you out, you wouldn't even have told me tomorrow's your birthday. Would you?"
He was met with silence.
"Right," he told her pointedly.
"It's just… I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, Rick."
"A big deal," He repeated, a little incredulous. "It's your birthday, Kate. It's not as big as finding the cure for AIDS or confirming the existence of extraterrestrials, but still I think it's worth a mention, don't you?"
"Well, I didn't know how to bring it up. It's weird having to announce it's your birthday, Rick. You know, coming out of the blue and just going – hey, tomorrow's my birthday."
"It's why you had dinner with your dad yesterday, right? To celebrate in advance?"
Her silence served as acquiescence and he knew he was right.
"You could've mentioned it then. You should've mentioned it then. I guarantee you it would've been much less awkward than this."
"Rick –"
"What, did you think I'd want to crash your dinner or something?" He asked, not really giving her a chance to reply. "Because I understand you probably wanted to spend some time with your father on your own. Being a father myself I can relate to that feeling."
"Rick –"
"And I would've respected it, Kate. Even though I told you I'd like to meet your dad, I didn't necessarily mean that in a 'make-me-a-part-of-the-family' way. I wouldn't have pushed you to allow me to come along to your family birthday dinner."
"I know. I'm sorry," she finally managed to get in.
"What are you really sorry for? That you didn't tell me or that I found out?"
Once again, all he heard was the sound of quiet.
He sighed, defeated. "You know what, I can take a cab home from here."
"No, Rick, wait," she interjected immediately, her hand on his shoulder when his own hand was already on the door handle. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. And I'm sorry you found out the way you did. I just really didn't want to make a big deal, and –"
"You know what really gets me?" He interrupted, annoyed with her 'not-a-big-deal' speech. "It's not just that you didn't tell me about your birthday – that I actually could've understood." At her raised brows, he amended, "Okay, probably not really understood. I mean, it's your birthday! Everyone loves birthdays!"
"I don't," she told him with a soft smile, as if trying to make her point.
"And I actually would've believed that if you weren't celebrating your birthday tomorrow."
"Not by choice. I didn't invite any friends from school or college, Rick. I have no family members coming to this. This was all Lanie – she's the one who made a big deal out of this, not me."
"Ever stop to think I might want to make a big deal out of this too?"
For the second time that day, Kate struggled for words.
"Why did you hide your birthday from me, Kate?"
"I don't know. I don't know, I guess… I…" she sighed, unable to form words.
"I just wish you'd tell me. Whatever it is you want to do about us. Because I never thought I'd be pushing for a relationship with someone who isn't even comfortable enough with me to tell me her birthday!"
God, they'd been together for barely a month and already she was screwing things up.
"I'm not used to doing this, Rick."
"This?" he prompted when she didn't say anything else.
"Being with someone," she admitted, timidly.
But Castle's reaction was to let out a bitter laugh. "When I met you, you were in a relationship, Kate. I'm pretty sure you're used to it."
"It's not the same. Will…" she trailed off. "It's just not the same," she told him, resignedly.
His look alone was enough to get more words out of her, though.
Taking a deep breath, she continued, "Will knew things about me, but he really didn't know me. Fine, he knew when my birthday was, and he knew about my mother's murder, and he knew about my early days in the force… but he didn't know me. He never really took the time to get to know me, to search for more." Kate looked down at her hands, sad smile on her lips. "I'm pretty sure he would've never reacted like this over my not telling him it was my birthday, for instance."
"Like what?"
"I don't know… angry? Hurt?" Kate suddenly felt self-conscious, as if she were assuming he was giving a great deal of importance to something that he really didn't care about. Trying to get her point across, she explained, "Rick, you pry and push for things. Early on, you learned how I liked my coffee…"
"I'm a novelist," he said with a shrug. "I've told you before – it's my job to notice things."
"I'm surprised you didn't know my birthday already, really."
His lips turned upwards discreetly. "I wasn't really looking for your date of birth when I peeked into your file."
She smiled at his demeanor. After a short period of silence, she resumed, "I really don't make a big deal about my birthday – which I'm sure you might've noticed since Lanie and her big mouth were worried I'd try to back out of our plans tomorrow."
He smiled in turn. "It did come across that way, yes."
"So, I guess I just didn't realize that I should tell you."
"You did realize it, Kate," he pointed out, gently. "You panicked when you noticed Lanie was about to tell me about your birthday. So, you knew you were supposed to tell me about it, and still you chose not to. That's what I don't get."
She recognized what he said was truth. She was hiding her birthday from him but she couldn't realize why. "I'm used to being closed off. I'm not a sharer. I guess I just thought if I didn't tell you, it would be one thing less you'd know about me."
Rick could not, for the life of him, understand why she would hide her birthday of all things. "Is it that important to you not to tell me things about yourself?"
"I don't know… I don't know, Rick. I don't think it was about you knowing. Maybe it was about what you'd do with that information? I don't…" She put her head in her hands. "God, I'm a mess."
"Hey," he pulled her right hand off her face and interlaced their fingers. "it's fine. I have no idea what's going on in that head of yours, but this birthday thing really isn't that important."
She laughed a little manically. "Right."
"Look, if you're worried about what I'm getting you as a gift I promise I can cancel the singing telegram. And the stripper who was going to jump out of a cake in the middle of the precinct for you."
His humored comments worked as intended, getting an honest, open laugh out of Beckett. "A male stripper? That's very thoughtful."
"Who said anything about a male stripper?"
"Of course," she smiled.
"Hey, I'll have you know Candice would've been a great entertainment for you," he kept the joke going.
"I don't know, Rick." She played with his shirt leaves mischievously. "What's the point of having a beautiful woman half naked in front of me if I can't really play with her?"
Castle choked purely on air.
She laughed again. "You're so easy."
He never missed a beat. "In case you want to book Candice for a little party, my birthday is on April 1st."
"Of course." She smiled, regarding him for a moment. "Thank you. For being understanding, even when neither of us actually understands what's going inside my head."
He smiled back. "Don't mention it."
"I meant it, you know. You should join us for drinks tomorrow. Especially now that you've already weaseled your way into the precinct anyway."
"Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss it for the world."
Kate smiled again before starting the car. As she was about to drive away, she turned to face Castle with a serious look. "You'll have to behave tomorrow, you know that, right?"
"I know," he told her with a smirk.
"Castle, I'm serious," she warned. "No grand gestures, no expensive presents, no wild evenings…"
"You're extremely cocky. Why would I do any of those things for you?"
She tried to keep her cheeks from blushing as she censured him, "Because you're a child trapped in a man's body. Don't forget I've seen your police record."
"Right."
"I'm serious, Rick, no crazy stuff."
"When have I ever done anything crazy for you?"
She gave him a pointed look. "Please ask me this again once everyone finds out you're writing a book about me."
"Point taken."
"Though so." She smirked. "Just promise me you won't go all Rick Castle and book an entire restaurant or hire U2 or something for me."
"U2? Please!" He told her with a sneer. "I'm sentimental – I'd go for Duran Duran. Our first concert together."
"We weren't together back then."
"Yes we were. We were in the same place and I even got you to the VIP area just so I could watch you that night."
"Fine. If you want to go all presumptuous – and kind of stalkerish – about it, I guess I can say that was our first concert together."
"Thank you," he accepted with a smirk.
"But you promise –"
"Yes, I promise, no grand gestures."
"Thank you," she told him with a smile as she pulled the car out of the driveway.
Despite his words, Castle was already coming up with 1,000 different ideas in his mind for how he could turn Kate's birthday into something magnificent.
It was going to be epic.
TBC
(All characters and even some of the quotes in this fanfic don't belong to me. This is made available for entertainment only and not for profit. No copyright infringement is intended.)