Chapter 3

A short walk later, he's still wondering how he has never seen her before, and consequently not talking. Her stride pattern is a convenient match to his, and so there's nothing to interrupt his – their – rhythm.

When they enter Remy's, much becomes clear.

"Detective Beckett" – so that's her name: Kate Beckett – the waitperson says. "Usual table? Who's this? New partner?"

"No. No new partner. Usual table, please."

Castle trails after her. Usual table turns out to be a semi-screened booth at the back of the restaurant, which is more or less invisible from any other table. So that's why he'd never have noticed her: not that he comes here any more. He'd used to, before he was famous. She slides into the place nearest the wall. With a sudden attack of discretion and common sense, Castle sits down opposite her, rather than next to her.

In the much better light in Remy's, she's even more stunning than he'd thought. "Why are you a cop?" he blurts out. "Shouldn't you be a lawyer, or a model?"

"I enjoy being a cop," she bites out, each word clipped off short.

"Okay, okay. I get it." She's unbelievably prickly. But, masochistically, he's fascinated. She's not making the slightest effort to treat him nicely, which is an interesting change from more or less everyone, every year since his first blockbuster novel, and the more he sees of her the more –

The more a character is coalescing in his head.

A character. A new character.

But not a story. He can't feel the story, only the character. He slumps. For a moment he'd had hope, and now it's dashed. He orders, bleakly, listens to Kate Beckett's order just in case he makes some notes on a character, and munches slowly through his burger and fries, depressed. She's equally silent.

Oddly, her silence is almost reassuring. So many people are trying to attract his attention (or just attract him), nagging or asking or shouting or intruding: he never has peace outside his loft, and, depending on his mother's mood, sometimes not there either. Strangely, this prickly, uncommunicative, tightly wrapped woman is peaceful.

Of course, she doesn't know who he is. That's probably why. If she knew, she'd be just like all the rest.

He has a flash of inspiration. He simply won't tell her who he is. Sometime in the last thirty seconds he's decided that however touch-me-not this spiky, irritable, and definitely not fawning woman is, he wants to see more of her anyway. He wants the complete lack of pressure and the silence. And of course, he wants a much better look at that glorious face and body. Still strangely, though, he doesn't only want to tumble her into bed and enjoy her. Would be nice, though. No pressure. No performance expectations. Just Rick, whoever Rick is. In fact, he doesn't even want to try – not now. He wants to get to know her. Become acquainted. Extraordinarily, he wants to be friends.

Beckett is slowly chewing on her burger, and considering her deep relief that this hadn't been superstar writer Richard Castle. She'd really thought it was, until he'd denied it. That would have been just too totally embarrassing. She'd have spent the succeeding minutes trying not to ask for a signed book, and then she'd have precipitately left in order not to have to explain why she wants one. Another one. Explaining that it makes her feel closer to her dead mother and that she badly needs to feel close to her whenever she's had to shoot to kill is… not somewhere she wants to go with anyone, still less a superstar who wouldn't care.

This guy – despite looking very, very like the author – doesn't give off any celebrity superstar vibe at all. No overbearing personality, or look-at-me spoilt brat-ness. No don't you know who I am? All the PR about celebrity Richard Castle suggests that he would never hide his identity. Clearly there's something on this Rick's mind, but if he wants her to know he'll tell her. She doesn't push for information, off duty. She does quite enough of that in her job.

He'd been a little pushy, though. Pushed himself into her fog of misery; pushed about going to get a burger – though he'd really been hungry, from the way he's downing his, so maybe that's okay. If she'd not agreed, he'd have left it. Anyways, she can deal. A little bit of guts, a little willingness to stand up for his own wants: she can deal with that.

He looks pretty miserable, though. Whatever he's lost, it's important to him. She knows how that feels. Oh, yes, she knows how that feels. Gathering up her empathy; what's left of it after dealing with the victims' families, the misery that's a constant by-product of her work; she attracts his attention by tapping the back of his hand with a slim, neat-nailed finger, and when the first, barely-there tap has no effect, taps harder, with a slight rub.

That's… that's… that is not what she expected at all. It's ridiculous. Dumb. It's not possible. She's imagining things. Or it's been so long since she's had a boyfriend that anyone would have the same effect.

But from the shocked, hot look in his eyes he's had exactly the same reaction to her touch as she did. It's electric. She whips her hand away, high colour scalding her cheekbones.

"Uh? What happened there?"

"Nothing."

"That wasn't nothing," he contradicts.

"I was attracting your attention." Oh God. She couldn't have chosen her words worse if she'd tried. His eyes dance. "You looked miserable, okay? I was going to ask if you were okay."

"You could have coughed, or something. You might have sounded like a dying horse, but you could've made a noise." There's a wickedly attractive crinkle at his eyes – what? No. No, no, no. No attraction.

"You wouldn't have noticed. So I tapped you."

"I certainly noticed that."

"It was just a tap."

Castle doesn't think it was just a tap. Castle thinks that it might as well have been a blowtorch, because he is scorched. Castle, in fact, thinks that he hasn't felt a connection like that in years. And Castle is about to try something that – if she had her gun, which he is very firmly remembering that she does not – ought to get him shot. But her eyes are blazing hot and her face has coloured up and he thinks that she's feeling the same burn he is.

"Yeah, sure," he drawls.

"It was!"

"Fine. If it was just a tap, then you won't mind tapping again. Just to prove it's nothing."

"No."

Castle smiles dangerously. "You're scared. Fraidy cat."

"I am not!"

"Sure you are. Otherwise you'd do it. One little tap."

"It's dumb."

Castle smirks annoyingly and exudes an atmosphere of see you're scared. His hand remains still on the table, though the other is fidgeting frantically out of sight. There is a pregnant pause.

Her hand moves to tap – yes! He called her right – and in one fast movement Castle's hand flips over and he catches her finger. She freezes: stock-still in his grip; and only that tiny point of contact is flooding him with heat and sheer want, so he slips his grip to have hold of her whole hand and it's slim and wholly hidden in his broad span but somehow it's as wide as the world.

She should be pulling her hand away. She should be laying into him and flaying him with words and possibly the handy knife at her plate. She should be tipping her milkshake over his head and standing up and walking out.

She should not be staring at him like a stunned sow and letting him keep her hand and feeling the shock run right down through her body.

But she is.

Her only consolation is that he looks as much like a stunned hog as she feels. Which is surely the only reason why she still hasn't removed her hand. Or his, with the blunt knife.

And then that becomes out of the question too because he's caught her other hand and now the circuit has closed and she can't believe that she's letting this happen but she can't believe how it feels and she simply cannot think any more. And he's still gripping both her hands and his are warm and dry and wholly enveloping and who is this Rick Rodgers anyway because he's totally fried her brain, only from holding her hands.

Castle has fried his own brain. He can't even consider letting go of her hands. He can't think. He doubts he could stand up, because he only has sensation in his own hands, where they're clasping hers. He sits there, hanging on to her like she's the last lifebelt on the Lusitania, completely incapable of speech, thought, or movement: staring at her as she is staring at him.

There is a space of absolute silence: a void around them that remains unpierced.

Beckett becomes aware that his thumbs are repetitively stroking over her palms; that his eyes are fixed on hers; that she could rapidly drown in the blue. She breaks his gaze, looking down at the table, the remains of her fries, a scattering of salt.

She's looked away. Castle doesn't like that: he wants to keep searching her hazel eyes for… for what? For the character that's rapidly forming in his head? But if there's no story, there's no need for the character; no need for the woman…

No. He will need the character. He does need the woman. But this is not going to flip over into the flashfire of hot desire and nothing more: a one-night stand where they never see each other again. No. This is going to be different.

He brings their still-linked hands down to the table.

"I wanna see you again," he says, tentatively, suggesting but not demanding.

That was…not what she was expecting. The heat in his eyes had implied a very different outcome. One which she would have turned down, regardless of the arc sparking between them. She doesn't do one-night stands. Not ever. Too many risks, all of which she's seen in her career. But he isn't trying for a one-night stand. He's suggesting…another meeting. Not even, exactly, a date. Her conviction that he is not Richard Castle is cemented. A celebrity wouldn't care, and certainly wouldn't want to meet again.

"Okay," her mouth says, before her brain can stop it.

His face lights up. "Great!" he bounces. "Tomorrow? Here? Or back at the bar? Somewhere else?"

"Uh…. Here. The bar is horrible."

"Okay." He thinks for a second. "Seven? Is that too late? Too early?"

"Just right."

"Goldilocks. Except you can't be Goldilocks because you've got dark hair so that doesn't work…"

At her sardonic stare he trails off.

"Do you have a filter?" she asks. "Or does every thought fall out of your mouth?"

Castle forcibly stops himself saying yes, I do have a filter, otherwise I'd be kissing you, and simply grins instead. "Seven tomorrow. Louis, I think" –

"This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," she caps. "Who'd have thought it?"

He gazes happily at her. "Perfect," he says. "I like Bogie films too."

She detaches a hand to finish eating her fries, chases them with her milkshake, and wipes her mouth. About that point she realises that her other hand is still firmly within his. She tugs, and retrieves it. He acquires a pathetically adorable expression of loss.

"I need both my hands," she points out, stating the obvious.

"Really? What if I need an extra one?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

He pouts at her. It should be totally off-putting. Instead it draws her attention to his lips, which are a distraction that she really doesn't need. She needs to get home. She puts down her share of the check. Rick Rodgers scowls at it.

"I wanna pay."

"I go Dutch," she says firmly. He mutters blackly to himself. It's sort of sweet, but she's not conceding the point. Instead, she stands up, and shrugs on her jacket,

"You're tall," he says happily, and stands up himself. So is he. Very pleasantly tall, and just the right height to tuck her in, as is currently being demonstrated – hang on, what? Since when did friends equal arm round her and tucking her in?

Castle congratulates himself on his massive demonstration of self-control – as in: he isn't tugging her round to him and kissing her – and on the serendipity that has led him to someone who hasn't a clue who he is, doesn't want anything from him (though he should have paid for dinner, he humphs to himself), and who is forming a more and more interesting character. Cop. Homicide cop. Hmmm.

And suddenly something starts to fall into place in his head. He can feel it. The tiniest twinge of inspiration starting to tickle his brain. He keeps her safely tucked in as they walk along to the subway station, and the twinges start to coalesce.

"My stop," she says. "I'm going east."

"Mine too, but I'm going west. Look, give me your number, and I'll give you mine, and then if there's any disaster" – she lifts an eyebrow – "I don't know: maybe aliens invading, or Yellowstone erupting, or something" –

"I think the cellphone networks might not be working in either case," she points out very dryly.

"Whatever. Please?"

"Oh, okay." She takes his phone, taps briskly for a few seconds, and gives it back in exchange for him doing the same.

"So I'll see you tomorrow, at Remy's?"

"Yes."

She turns away. Castle gives in to impulse, turns her back, and pecks her cheek. She strides off, but he can see flusterment in each definite clack of her shoes.

He doesn't turn to his own platform until she's out of sight, and then he dashes to catch the train, desperate to get home. It's clicked. There's a story in his head and he has to start now before it flees his clutching fingers.

He's barely home before his laptop is open and a new document begun: a quick hey to his family, who recognise the signs – his mother might have wanted to say something, but he's not stopping or listening as the office door closes behind him; and then an outline starting to take shape on his page. It's sketchy in the extreme, but it's there.

By midnight, he has a skeleton, of sorts. By three a.m., it's developed a little flesh. By four, when he falls into bed, exhausted in the best possible way, he knows it's going to be there.

He only needs to keep seeing her. To listen to her stories. He doesn't need to tell her about his missing book, because if he can only hear her brisk, uptown tones then the story is going to be there. He only needs to keep her near, and not, never ever, reveal that he's not Rick Rodgers, ordinary working stiff, but Richard Castle, celebrity superstar author and multimillionaire, who does Balthazar like it's a burger bar and eye-candy like it's going out of fashion.

With her, this evening, he didn't want to be Richard Castle at all. He just wanted to be him. No need for the put-on personality and the big-I-am; no need for the show and the glam and the glitz. No need to pretend.

He crashes into sleep and dreams of her: a tall slim brunette, with eyes that hold universes and multitudes, with legs as long as the Mississippi but silence as deep as the Atlantic, with a choppy haircut and prickly temper, and yet with all that, she's provided the first peaceful moments he's had in years. His dreams are of closeness: the sensation of her fingers closed within his; the curve of her shoulders beneath his arm; the soft skin of her cheek as he'd laid a swift buss upon it.

He wakes to find himself wrapped around a pillow, and wonders at the affection he's revealing. He's not a man who ordinarily starts with affection: that's for his family. Outsiders are liked, or taken to bed; they're not given affection.

Beckett makes it home without realising how she got there, which is a pretty perfect summing up of the entire evening. She has absolutely no idea how any of the evening got to where it did. First off, she hadn't wanted any company. Yet she'd let him stay around. Then she hadn't intended to talk about it. Yet she did. Then she hadn't meant to encourage him – yet she had done that too. She hadn't needed to touch him. And just to put the icing on the cake, she'd let him hold her hands, cuddle her in as they walked, and then plant a soft kiss on her cheek.

And of course, she's agreed to see him again tomorrow.

But it was… well, nice. Easy. No pressure. No knowledge of her history, and no desire to get to know anything except about her job. She's cool with that. And despite the unmistakable fact that he'd felt the same scorching connection that she had, he hadn't pushed. She likes that. She really likes that he didn't hit on her.

Sometimes, she needs a little help to keep on putting one foot in front of the other. Lanie is a great friend: they're there for each other whenever they need it, but it's not the same as an undemandingly warm form of just plain physical affection. Not sex. Sex… well, that's a different matter and it's not what she means here. She means…um… cuddles. It sounds ridiculous, but…she doesn't see a lot of affection in her life, and she could really, really use some. And being cuddled in had felt very good indeed.

She falls asleep, quite insanely since she's cleansed her face, with a fingertip to her cheek where his lips had touched her skin, and wakes with a totally unreasonable feeling of lightness when she remembers that she's got somewhere to be this evening that isn't staring at her walls or into a glass.

Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Since alerts are still completely non-existent for me and at best random or intermittent for others, I will post to a strict schedule of as close as possible to 2pm EST on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

To answer a couple of guest queries:

This story is 15 chapters total. "Flick" was British slang. Two nations, divided by a not-very-common language.

Why introduce the book and then have them meet in a bar - well, that's the story! The book is important, and will return.