Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.

Castle? It's Castle. She looks awful. Lanie told her so. She'd said that Castle looks awful, too, but he doesn't. He doesn't. Anemones. He's holding anemones. They must be for her. Some of them are blue like his eyes, and most are purple. Her favorite color. Does he know that? He brought her anemones. She looks at his mouth. His lips are slightly apart. It's erotic. It's mesmerizing. Everything feels like it's happening in slow motion, the way it does when you remember falling. She's not sure if his lips are moving, even though she's watching them. He has beautiful lips. He did say something, a moment ago, or maybe just now? In slow motion, it's hard to tell which. So she asks him. "What?"

"What?"

"What did you say?"

Even though it's cool, he's beginning to sweat. "Uh, that I saw your light on and figured you were home." Is she going to let him in? He'd thought that this was a great idea, but it might be a disaster.

"My light?"

"Yes. It's on." He gestures to the lamp that he can see through the open door, a prime example of pointing out the obvious. He doesn't point out something equally obvious, which is that she has no bra on under her wisp of a camisole. Or a shirt on over it.

"You were looking at my window?"

Shit, now she thinks he's a stalker. "Oh. No, see, I brought lunch to the boys at the precinct today. Esposito and Ryan. And me. The three of us, but I thought it would be the four of us. I was surprised that you weren't there and they said you were on vacation and I didn't know that and so I wondered if you'd gone away but when I happened to be in your neighborhood a while ago I thought, it occurred to me, oh, maybe you're taking a staycation because I know you really love the city when it empties out and in summer a lot of people go away so it's not as crowded which is great although there are more tourists so it's probably a wash." He pauses for a calming breath. The breath comes, but the calm doesn't. "And then I had a drink at that bar, you know the one on, um, Sullivan." There must be a bar on Sullivan Street, surely there is, because he doesn't want her to catch him in a lie on a dumb mistake. "And I thought it would be nice to bring you flowers since I haven't seen you in a long time and if you were on a staycation you'd be home to enjoy them, not like when you're working and you'd never see them except for five minutes in the morning and five minutes at night. So I got these on the off-chance you were. Home, I mean. And then I walked over here which is pretty much on my way to the loft and I looked up and yes, your light was on, so I came in. Came in your building."

He'd rehearsed this a dozen times this afternoon, and it's all shot to hell. It's beginning to feel like hell, too, but he can't go without giving her the flowers. He holds the bouquet out to her. "They're anemones. I hope you like them."

When she takes them from his hand her fingers accidentally brush his wrist. It's so soft, as soft as the petals look. She wants to say so many things, but what she does instead is blurt out two words. "Forsaken love."

He shifts uneasily. Lanie hadn't said anything about mental instability, but what? He wants to kiss her, but that seems an unsuitable response to "forsaken love."

"Anemones," she says, tilting the flowers back towards him but holding them tightly. "They mean 'forsaken love'."

"They do? Oh. I was going for another meaning. 'Excitement about something in the future'."

"Yeah, well, you've always been the optimist in this relationship, Castle." Relationship? She said they're in a relationship? "I mean, you're the hopeful one. More hopeful one. More than I am. Of the two of us." She suddenly notices that she's strangling the flowers. "Would you like to come in?"

"Could I have the flowers back?"

He wants to leave? What did she do? Her brain is so screwed up. She thrusts the bouquet at him as if it were on fire. "Take them."

"No, I want you to take them." This is beginning to resemble a vaudeville routine, and if he weren't so upset he'd be laughing. "I'd like to start over. May I start over?"

She's gaping, and her eyes are huge.

"I hope that's a yes. I'm going to take it as a yes, since you didn't say no." He runs his hand nervously through his $300 haircut. "Hey, Beckett." Okay, that's better, he's better. He beams at her. "I'm really, really happy to see you."

"You are? But I look terrible."

"You couldn't look terrible if you were dressed in a burlap bag and emerging from primordial ooze, which you aren't." He offers her the anemones again. "These are for you."

She accepts them graciously this time. "Thanks, Castle. That's sweet. Would you like to come in?"

"Yes. Thanks." He looks around, still a bit uncomfortable. "Wow, you've really made something of this place. It was so empty before. I mean, after your other apartment, er."

"Blew up? Yeah, well, I didn't have much left to put in here, but it's coming along. Some stuff my Dad had in storage, like a really nice sofa, and then I got, you know, things." He's still barely over the threshold, and not moving. "Want to sit down?"

"On the nice sofa from your Dad?"

"Yeah."

"I would. Thanks."

She turns her head in the direction of the kitchen sink, then back to him, as if to reassure herself that he's actually there. "Got to put the flowers in water."

When she stretches to get a vase from a high shelf, her camisole rides up, and even from several feet away he can see every one of her ribs. They look as if they're about to burst through her skin. She's skeletal. He covers up his gasp with a cough.

"You okay?" she says.

"Fine. Just a tickle."

"Would you like something to drink? Water? Coffee?"

"Coffee would be nice. If it's not too much trouble."

"No trouble, Castle. I can make coffee in my sleep," she says, filling the vase at the sink. "I probably sometimes do." She plumps the anemones, carries them into the living room, and sets them on the coffee table. "They're beautiful. Thank you." Nothing to say, everything to say. "Would you like, um, would you like something to eat with your coffee?"

Whoa, that's a shock. "You have food?"

"Yes," she snaps. "I have food."

"I didn't mean to sound rude. It's just that you"–

"Just that I'm so thin I must be starving myself? That what you were going to say?"

"No, no, not at all." Jesus, he really touched a nerve. "I'm sorry. I meant that the last time I was here, not here, but your old place, you were very short on food."

"Yeah, well I have a lot now."

"Good. That's good. You have anything like a cookie?" He sounds like an idiot, but she's knocked him off-kilter. "I always like a cookie, or something, when I have coffee at night."

With her hands on her hips, she hangs her head, and finally straightens up again. "I'm sorry, too," she says with a hint of a smile. "By any chance do you like buttermilk biscuits?"

"You mean homemade? I love them."

"Yeah. Homemade by Lanie. Her mother's recipe."

Lanie. Both of them flinch inwardly at the name of the person not in the room but very much in the room. He comes to the rescue, such as it is, first. "Sounds perfect. Want help?"

"I'm fine. I'll bring them with the coffee." Bring your manners, too, Kate, she tells herself. The man came to see you. Gave you flowers that mean excitement for the future, for God's sake.

He's never felt so awkward, not even in the series of first, and frequently last, dates of his adolescence. Things used to be so easy between them. Up your game, he tells himself, but be gentle. When he sees her coming, bearing a tray, he jumps to his feet.

"Sit down, Castle. I've got it."

She eases herself onto the sofa, leaving a chasm of blue upholstery between them. She's so light that he hardly feels it when she sits. He helps himself to a biscuit, and bites into it. Buttery, flaky, fantastic. "Mmmf. Delicious."

"Told you." It's way past time to get the conversation going, although the butterflies that are carrying on in her stomach are making that almost impossible. She's going to ask him why he's in town in August, but what comes out is, "Do you know what you call a group of butterflies?"

He really should have asked Lanie the mental stability question. She's so–. What is she? She's so unBeckettlike at the moment. "Is this a riddle? A trick question?" She laughs at that and he hopes that it's not an indication of nascent hysteria.

"No." She puts down her mug and presses both hands against her concave stomach. "No. I looked up the collective name for butterflies once: it's rabble. Isn't that weird? A group of the most delicate creatures imaginable is called rabble." She's unaccountably feeling brave. Somehow saying that, saying something that flew out of her with neither her permission nor any forethought, has given her courage. "I'm so nervous. Worst butterflies of my life." She pauses, has another sip of coffee, and looks sideways at him. "I'm really, really happy to see you, too, Castle."

"You are?"

She wonders if he realizes that he's still holding part of a biscuit.

"Yeah. So, um, you're in town." Of course he's in town. He's sitting right here. "I mean, I didn't expect to see you."

"Because I'd be in the Hamptons?"

"Yeah. But also maybe ever. I thought I might never see you again except one-dimensionally, in the photo on the backs of your books."

If he weren't already sitting down, that would knock him to his knees. The thought that they would never see each other again is so painful that he can't address it, at least not yet. "Well, I'm here, in three-D." He hopes that sounds happy; he hopes that he looks happy.

Huh. He didn't say anything about why he was in town. She won't bring it up again, and least not yet. "So, you saw the guys at lunch?"

"I did. I brought lunch for everyone, including you. That's when they mentioned that you were on vacation. I said." He winces. "I said I bet you'd gone to the Jersey shore with Demming. And then they told me that you weren't seeing each other anymore."

"They told you that?"

"Well, they didn't offer it up. It was just because of what I said about you and Demming. They said he's dating Begley now." He's looking sideways at her, and she seems a little pale. "Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it."

"No, it's fine." She flaps her hand as if to dismiss the idea. "He and I weren't going anywhere, and I called it quits, so it's not like I'm jealous. But every time I see her in the evidence room she makes me feel inadequate."

"Inadequate? She's very sweet, but the goldfish I had in fourth grade was smarter than she is. I was looking for DNA results once and couldn't find them. Turns out she files them under 'J.' When I asked her why she looked at me as if I were short a few brain cells and said, ' "J" for Jeans.' It took me a second, but then I said, 'Jeans! Oh, you mean genes, with a "G".' And she said, 'I don't think you spell it with a "G",' but she kindly got me the file and I thanked her. And then I went out in the hall and smacked my head against the wall."

Beckett opens her mouth, shuts it, waits, and opens it again. "I wasn't talking about her intellect, Castle."

"Oh."

Her eyes move down. "I was talking about her boobs."

As responses go, this one is probably an exceedingly poor choice, but he hasn't made a choice. It just happens. He bursts out laughing, and goes on laughing until he's tilting sideways, breaching the upholstered chasm between them until his hand, entirely of its own accord, lands on top of hers. But instead of being embarrassed or nervous, he's liberated. "Never, ever, ever feel inadequate," he says, daring to look her right in the eyes. Her gorgeous, amberish eyes. Should he let go of her hand? The spot in the frontal lobe of his brain that governs impulse control is at war with his entire heart, and the heart wins. Not only does he not let go of her hand, he squeezes it. It's then that she takes him utterly by surprise, not by withdrawing her hand or letting it stay–and she is letting it stay–but by the question she asks.

"Where's Gina?"

"Gina?" He might have a death grip on her hand now.

"Yeah, you know. Your publisher, your ex-wife and, last time I saw you, your girlfriend."

"Ah, the trifecta of horror. Wait, no, there's nothing horrible about the ex-wife part, but the other two, yeesh." The instant he says that, she pulls her hand away. What the hell?

"So you're not together any more?"

"No."

"Good," she says, as she takes her hands–both now free–puts them around his face, and kisses him. There's absolutely nothing gentle about it.

TBC

A/N Thank you for continuing to read and leaving good cheer. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.