Florida Heat

A/N: Things are about to get a little more interesting... Thank you to all of you who reviewed last chapter. I loved hearing what you thought about the "I love you." :)

If you are new to this story, then welcome! Enjoy. If you are returning, then welcome back! I love having you all here and hearing what you think! :)

Chapter 9

Castle awoke with a start as someone cleared their throat behind him.

"Mornin' bro. Are we interrupting something?" Esposito teased as he and Ryan stood in the small entry to the hotel room, both holding an overloaded bag of Chinese food. Castle's spare key card dangled from Ryan's fingertips.

"She had a nightmare," Castle explained as he cracked his back, which was stiff from the way he had fallen asleep: sitting on the floor with his head bent to lie on the bed next to hers.

He tried to bring his hand up to wipe over his face only to find his fingers had become intertwined with Kate's at some point while they had been asleep. Carefully, he worked his hand loose and moved to stand up, his back cracking the entire way. He was definitely getting too old for this.

Esposito nodded in understanding as he and Ryan moved to place the sacks of food on the table and started sorting it out.

"She remember anything?" He asked quietly as they made small piles for each person- placing some of the collective favorites in the middle for everyone to share.

Castle shook his head. "I don't know. She wouldn't wake up. She just calmed down so I let her be."

He thought back to the couple of hours before. He could have sworn he heard her say something, but he couldn't remember what. He had already been asleep. He shook his head and reached for a container as a moan came from the bed and he turned back in time to see Kate's head pop up.

"Is that food?"

The three men nodded and she swung herself off of the bed, attempting to straighten her hair and clothes as she walked towards them. Kate poked through the piles, crinkling her nose at certain things before picking up Castle's box of beef lo-mein and plucking an eggroll out of the container that had been placed deliberately between Ryan and Esposito's piles.

The three men watched, motionless and in silence, as she plopped back down on the foot of the bed, pulled her legs up, crossing them, and dug into the food with gusto. While Castle was extremely happy to see her eating, since she was still at least five pounds underweight, he couldn't help but stare.

"What?" She asked as she took a big bite of the eggroll.

He shook his head. "You hate eggrolls."

Kate looked at him curiously, then back down at the half eaten roll and shrugged. "Tastes pretty good to me."

Castle sighed and rubbed his brow as he picked up the box of orange chicken that had been set aside for Beckett and pulled out a pair of chopsticks, digging in. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she sucked up a noodle and popped the rest of the eggroll into her mouth, happily reaching for another one from the container Ryan was silently holding out to her.

Castle put down his food, suddenly finding himself no longer hungry, and excused himself to the bathroom. The latch on the door clicked into place as he leaned back against it and slid to the floor, a single tear running down his face. He didn't care that he was crying. He hadn't slept more than a couple of hours in two days, the woman he loved had been kidnapped, tortured and now had no idea who she was, and he was royally pissed off. He was allowed to cry. He brought a hand up to stifle a sob, attempting to keep his breakdown quiet. He wasn't sure how much more of this he could take.

Kate looked at him when he finally came back into the room. Her box of food was sitting on the table, empty and she was holding a bottle of water in her hands. She was watching him intently, the way she normally did when she knew something was wrong but he wouldn't talk about it. Except, this time, there was a slight confusion on her face, instead of that knowing glint. It was like she knew she was supposed to understand something, but couldn't quite get there. The confusion was enough to push him a little bit more over the edge and he plopped down on the foot of his bed with a huff.

Apparently, Kate figured that one out because she pushed herself off of the bed and padded her way, barefoot, to the door, gathering up her few belongings and the key card to her own room as she went.

"I'm going to go to sleep," she explained quietly as she opened the door. The guys nodded as Castle sat silent on the bed. They all listened as that door slid shut and the one straight across the hall, Kate's room, clicked open.

Castle sat still for another moment, Ryan and Esposito watching him silently, as he stared at note covered wall. Suddenly he was off the bed, and in a flurry of motion, made short work of taking all of the sheets of paper off of the wall. Stacking them haphazardly inside the manila file folder before shoving it in Ryan's hands. He was tired, he was angry and he wanted all of this to be over.

"I want you guys to put this in your room and don't let Kate see it anymore, you got me? She doesn't need to be seeing this stuff right now."

The boys simply nodded. Seemingly sensing his frustration, they gathered up the rest of the files and a couple boxes of food, excusing themselves back to their shared suite.

Castle flopped back down on the bed and expelled a giant puff of air into the silent room. He had to figure out something, but first he needed to get some sleep. He glanced over at the clock, shocked to see that it only read nine o'clock. He sighed as his eyes slid shut. It didn't matter; he needed to sleep anyway.

Castle couldn't say that he was in a great mood when his eyes cracked open the next morning, but after twelve hours of sleep, he could say that he was feeling better. Slowly, he dragged himself out of bed and set about his morning routine before pulling on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt from his bag and sliding his feet into flip-flops. He placed a pair of sunglasses on top of his head and gathered up his wallet, phone and the keys to his rental car. Today he wasn't going to worry about the case at all; today he was going to focus on Kate.

She opened the door after he knocked for the first time and stared up at him with a small smile, already showered and dressed in a white ribbed tank top and a pair of blue and green plaid Bermuda shorts; her feet also in flip-flops. All of it collected from the quick shopping trip they had conducted the day before. He stared at her for a second. It was definitely not normal Beckett garb, but that was okay, because right now she was just Kate and they were in Florida. When in Rome, right? He didn't think he had seen a normal pair of shoes since they had gotten there. Not that he blamed everyone for wearing sandals all the time: it was hotter than hell down here.

"Come on," he said, motioning for her to follow him out into the hall. "We're going out?"

She held up a finger, silently telling him to hold on, before sliding back into the room to quickly grab her room key, sunglasses and a hair tie, before joining him back out in the hall.

"Where are we going?" She asked as she fell into step beside him.

"It's a surprise."

He watched as she stared out at the ocean, her bare feet sinking into the warm damp sand. She had been quiet on the drive over to the water and it had annoyed him more than it should. He had halfway expected her to try to snatch the keys out of his hand. Instead, she had simply slid into the passenger seat and looked out the window as they drove through the city. He had fumbled with the radio, grousing about the abnormally high number of country music stations before finally settling on classic rock, drumming his hands on the steering wheel to the beat. She continued to watch the city going by, ignoring his usually irritating actions, content to stare up at the bright blue sky and the passing buildings and billboards.

"You told me once that when you were a kid your parents would bring you to the beach and you would love it. So, I thought this would be a nice trip for you," Castle stated quietly as he stood next to her, staring out at the water. A dolphin jumped in the distance and a couple of children, that had been playing beside them, stopped to point and stare.

"It's beautiful," she replied as she shielded her eyes from the harsh sun that even the glasses didn't block completely.

Thy walked in the water line, waves lapping at their feet as they made their way up the beach, stopping every so often to pick up a shell or comb the sand for sharks teeth. Castle threw out a few fun facts about them being near one of the biggest mating grounds for sharks and Kate jumped as a kid screamed in the distance. Laughing at her own actions when they turned to see the child was merely being covered in bucketfuls of wet sand by his friends.

"Remind me not to go into the water," she ordered quietly as they continued to walk, their hands bumping against each other.

A second later she kicked a little bit of water on his shin, smiling up at him playfully and started to back away as she saw the surprised expression on his face turn into an evil grin.

Soon he was chasing her down the beach and she squealed as he caught her and held her out over the ocean, wading in up to his knees, as he threatened to drop her in the shark infested waters. Sun fried tourists watching on in amusement.

"Put me down. Please, Rick. Or I swear to God I will make you pay."

He laughed gently as she clung to his neck and he lowered her body until she was standing directly in front of him, her front pressed to his.

She stared up at him, sunglasses hiding her eyes but the curiosity still evident on her face.

He placed his hands on her waist and pushed her back a step, causing her hands to unclasp from around him and fall to her sides. Hurt flickered across her face, mixing with the curiosity as she continued to stare up at him.

"I don't know what's going on."

Castle sighed and rubbed his neck, which was already tender from the sunburn beginning to form there. "I know you don't. That's the problem."

Kate turned her head to stare out at the water behind her, her arms coming up to wrap around her stomach. "What do you want from me, Rick?"

He laughed in disbelief. What did he want? Did she really want to know what he wanted? Shouldn't she already know?

"I want you to snap at me for constantly changing the radio station. I want you to insist on driving. I want you to roll your eyes and bite your lip. I want you to get annoyed with me. I want you to moan over how much you love orange chicken, groan over how you can't bring yourself to eat lo-mein and crinkle your nose at the thought of eggrolls because when you were five you were forced to eat boiled cabbage and now you can't even stand the smell of it. I want you to fight and scream and yell. I want you to order me around and stop asking for my permission. I want you to remember. That is what I want. I want my Kate back."

Kate stared at him for a long moment. A single hand came up from where her arms were wrapped around her middle and pushed a clump of chestnut hair behind her ear in vain as the wind swept in across her face again. She nodded her head and dipped her eyes down to look at her toes, still squishing in the sand, before bringing them back up to look at him from behind the dark lenses of her glasses.

"I want you to take me back to the hotel now."

He watched as she turned away from him, quickly walking over the powdery sand before her legs could sink in too deep, heading back down the beach towards his rental.

"Kate! Wait. I'm sorry."

He yelled as he mentally slapped himself upside the head and ran after her, not caring how many summer beach goers were still watching them.

"I'm sorry," he repeated as he caught up with her and stepped in her path, causing her to hesitate slightly before changing route to go around him.

"It's fine, Castle. I just want to go back now. I'm tired."

The ride back to the hotel was silent and tense and the rest of the day even worse. Castle could even bring himself to play with the radio when a commercial came on.

Ryan and Esposito must have sensed that something was wrong, when they ran into them in the lobby of the hotel and the boys explained that they were going to go meet with the sheriff, because they exchanged a glance before dismissing themselves as fast as possible. Kate mumbled that she was going to take a nap when they reached their floor and slid into her room with out another word, only coming out later to gather up some food before locking herself back in her room to eat.

Castle called Alexis again, for a short conversation, mostly avoiding topics about himself and questioning her on how her day was instead. He heard about the shopping trip and lunch with her friends and how she had spent a few hours staring at the paintings in the MoMA. She excused herself after a few minutes, explaining that Ashley was picking her up for a date— one of their last ones before he left for Stanford. After hanging up with his daughter, he placed a couple more perfunctory calls, one to Jim Beckett to update him on Kate's condition, promising him not to worry and that Kate would call the next day and one to Paula to apologize once again for running out in the middle of his book tour— not that he was truly sorry.

He fell asleep sometime later staring at a blank document on his laptop screen, wondering if anything he was doing was actually going to work or if he truly was doomed to fail.

Castle jerked awake to a steady pounding on the door and he glanced at the clock as he pushed the laptop off of him, stumbled out of bed and to the door. 3:04 AM.

"What the hell?" He muttered to himself as he fumbled with the metal chain and unlatched the deadbolt.

He blinked a couple of times when they bright light of the hall hit his eyes and he found himself face to face with Katherine Beckett wearing a tank top and a pair of boxers.

"I don't like eating lo-mein because when I was eight years-old Jimmy Young told me that they mixed worms into it and you couldn't tell because they looked like noodles. You tried to get me to eat it once and I almost barfed all over you."

Castle blinked at her for a minute as his brain caught up with the situation and a slow smile spread across his face, mirroring hers, as he laughed in disbelief.

She remembered.