Disclaimer: All these characters belong to ABC and Mr. Marlowe
A/N: Before you read this chapter, I just want to say how amazing you all are, and I apologise (again) for this extremely late update. I really didn't plan on having such a major wait between this chapter and the last, but I've just been terribly busy with minimal free time to write. Anyway, this one is a bit longer for you all and I hope you still enjoy it despite the delay.
Shuffling his way from the study, Rick took a moment to raise his arms above his head in a post-writing stretch. Argh, his back was cramped, his fingers were sore, but he had outlined almost four chapters. Yeah, it was kinda worth it.
Hearing his stomach rumble, Rick continued to make his way towards the kitchen.
Hmm, he needed food.
"Ah, hello to my two favourite ladies," he sighed, passing his mother and daughter as they sat at the kitchen island.
Lifting her head out of the magazine in front of her, Alexis offered a smile. "Hey Dad."
"Nice of you to make an appearance, Richard," Martha commented in a disapproving tone.
Opening numerous cupboards, Rick offered a slight smile over his shoulder. "Yes, well unfortunately I cannot control my writing genius."
Turning back to the mass of food in front of him, Rick's eyes widened as he spotted the Cap'n Crunch. "Aha!"
Casually flicking through a few more fashion filled pages, Alexis rested her chin on her palm before looking over to her father. "So, Dad. About that phone call last night. You still don't have any idea about what you did?"
Pulling the cardboard box off the shelf, Rick dramatically spun around. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's just reverse back a bit. What I did?" he repeated, comically narrowing his eyes and making his way back to the bench top.
"How do you know it's not something Kate did?" he queried as he poured the cereal into a bowl.
"Richard, from your lack of maturity and tendency to get in trouble, I think it's safe to say this is your fault," Martha honestly responded.
Looking up, Rick offered a frown. "Hey, I can be mature."
Martha and Alexis silently sat there, and simply eyed him from head to toe.
Okay, that was probably not his best defence, especially whilst preparing an oversized bowl of cereal and wearing his Green Lantern pyjamas. But still...
"Well, when I want to be," he justified with a mumble before turning to the fridge.
Collecting the milk, he heard a knock at the door. "Ah, would one of you mind getting that?"
Completing his cereal preparations, Rick began to eat as his daughter welcomed their guest.
"Ah, Kate, lovely to see you again," Martha welcomed with a zealous smile.
"Hi, Martha," Kate replied, before she looked to Castle with a curious glance.
"Good afternoon, Castle. So, still in your pyjamas and eating cereal for lunch, huh?"
Castle shook his head in disagreement and carried on eating. "Don't judge my pyjamas. They're awesome. And it's cereal for breakfast," he eagerly clarified.
"Castle, it's midday."
"He does that," Alexis mumbled.
Castle finished chewing and then swallowed. "I live by the rule that if it's your first meal of the day, it's always breakfast, no matter what time it is. Hence, the cereal," he explained, once again bringing the overflowing spoon to his mouth. "Want some?" he asked, lifting up the box of Cap'n Crunch.
"No thanks, I already ate," Kate answered, slightly amused.
Rick shrugged his shoulders. "Hmm, your loss."
"So, what have you done that has gotten Paula so worked up?" Kate breathed out on an unsympathetic sigh.
Shooting his head up, Rick dropped his spoon, causing it to clatter against the bowl. "What's with everyone presuming I'm to blame here?" he questioned, mouth occupied by cereal and milk spilling out and down his chin.
"Richard, must you really speak with your mouth full?" Martha sighed.
"When I'm defending my honor? Yes," Castle nodded as he wiped his chin.
Shaking her head, Martha turned to the detective standing next to her. "Kate, I apologise on behalf of my son."
Kate let out a chuckle and briefly looked over to Castle. "Nah, he's not too bad," she casually said with a slight shrug.
Hearing her, Castle quietly smiled to himself, before he caught sight of his mother watching him, her eyebrows raised.
Looking away, Rick cleared his throat before finishing off the last of his cereal. "Don't you two have a show to catch?" he began, noting to his mother and daughter. "If you want to beat the storm that's coming, you should probably head off now."
"Oh, you're right," Martha noted, collecting her handbag before turning back to Rick and Kate. "Okay, well good luck kids, hopefully this thing with Paula isn't anything too serious."
Stepping up to her father, Alexis gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Bye, Dad."
"Bye, Pumpkin. Have fun."
"Yep. See you, Kate," Alexis farewelled, before following her grandmother to the door.
"Bye."
Giving his daughter a final wave, Rick placed his dirty bowl in the dishwasher, before hearing another knock on the door.
"Okay, that's either Mother returning because she forgot something, or it's Paula," Castle commented, eyes darting. "Prepare yourself either way," he whispered as he walked past Kate and made his way to the entry.
Pulling open the door, Rick stepped aside.
"You two are lucky I'm so damn good at my job," Paula began, confidently striding her way through to the kitchen.
"Ah, hello to you too, Paula," Rick sighed as he closed the door and followed her back into his loft.
"You know, when you called me and said that you wanted to take Kate to the museum, I agreed. It was despite my better judgement, but I still agreed. And how do you thank me? Oh, that's right, the genius that you are decides to run away from the press," she sarcastically narrated, offering him a glare with both hands placed on her hips.
Rick stood there, processing all of her information, tilting his head in thought. "Wait, that's what this is all about? All of this because we decided to get a little exercise?"
Paula frowned at him, unamused by his attempted humor. "They waited outside that museum for four hours, Rick. Four hours, and then when you two finally decided to make an appearance, you bolted."
"I told you it was a bad idea," Kate commented in a sing-song voice under her breath.
"No, it was a great idea. You totally had fun. Besides, I still don't see what the big deal is," Castle retorted.
"They didn't appreciate it, Rick," Paula interceded. "You know about the deal we have with them, and after your little stunt, they didn't think that you two were keeping up your end."
Castle used Paula's pause to sneak a quick glance at Kate. Yep, this probably wasn't good.
"Now, I've managed to smooth things over with the smaller papers and magazines, but The Ledger, they still weren't satisfied and threatened to reduce your amount of published articles."
Oh boy.
"They've been our biggest source of publicity throughout this, so I'm sure both of you are aware of how big of a problem this is."
Castle could feel Paula's stare burning his skin, so uneasily scratching his neck, he spoke up. "But Kate and I are the buzz of the city. We're making them money. Surely they would't jeopardise that?"
Paula adamantly shook her head. "Buzz of the city or not, they are aware of your upcoming book release, Rick. They know you need the publicity, so they hold all the cards."
Straightening her posture, Paula removed her hands from her hips. "Now, after numerous phone calls, we were finally able to settle on an agreement which actually benefits everyone."
Rick turned away from Paula and glanced at Kate. She looked like she was ready to throttle him any second, so hesitantly turning back to Paula, Rick swallowed.
"What kind of agreement?"
With large thunder booming above them, Rick looked over to Kate as she walked beside him.
"I'm going to kill you," she gritted.
"Ah, I'd rather you wouldn't," he admitted. "Besides, if you want to kill someone, it should be the press. All I wanted was for you to have a little fun. It's not my problem that they are clearly overly sensitive people," he defended.
Receiving a dry eye roll from her, Castle changed his tactics. "Come on, it could have been worse."
"We have to do an interview, Castle!"
"Look, we've managed to fool everyone in the city with our romance so far, what's one more journalist? Anyway, it's only to confirm our relationship to the world, so it shouldn't go for too long. Paula said about fifteen to twenty minutes max."
Kate stopped as she firmly planted her feet in place with her arms crossed over her chest. "Castle, don't you get it? They're going to ask us questions. Questions for people in relationships. Real relationships."
Wow, he really didn't consider that, but she made an extremely valid point.
"Hmm. Good thinking," he began, pausing in his steps to ponder. "Well then, I guess we should develop a plan. Cover our bases," he briefly suggested before fishing into his back jean pocket for his small writer's pad and pen.
Flipping open the pages, he began to scribble a few things down before looking up to Kate. "Okay, what side of the bed do you sleep on?"
"What?"
"You're right. They are going to ask us relationshippy questions, so we need to have prepared answers. So, left or right?" he reiterated, awaiting a response.
Kate pinched her forehead and let out a sigh. "This is ridiculous."
"Just answer the question."
Kate stared at him, seemingly weighing up her options before offering a dry eye roll. "Right," she mumbled, as she turned around and began to walk off.
"Darn, that's my side," Castle noted, writing the answer in his notepad. "Okay, I'm willing to compromise. Alternate me can sleep on the left," he quickly thought aloud, before getting into a slight jog to catch up to her.
Moving on, Castle continued. "What do you eat for breakfast? You already know what I have."
"Yoghurt and berries."
"Hmm. Healthy," he commented, jotting down a few more notes. "Okay, what do you wear to bed?"
"Castle-" she warned, coming to a halt once again.
"These are serious questions. What do you wear? Flannel? Cotton? Silk?"
Receiving no response, Castle gasped. "Oh my God, you don't sleep naked, do you?"
Kate displayed a deadly glare, so Castle returned to his notepad.
Note to self: She most definitely does not sleep naked.
"Okay, this was clearly a bad idea," Kate began, getting back into stride. "Look, you're the writer between the two of us. I'm sure you can spontaneously create some believable answers."
"Okay, so moving on to the final question, how did you two fall in love?"
Sitting in a small windowless room at the head offices of The Ledger, Kate and Rick were positioned next to each other on two rather uncomfortable chairs. Situated opposite them, was Liz.
She was a quirky kind of girl, had long, thin, sandy hair and was wearing oversized glasses. Apparently she was an intern and this was her big break, and she seemed to be absolutely enthralled by the pair.
So far her questions had been easy enough; what their favourite date has been, what they like to do away from the public eye, and they had managed to bluff their way through, Liz hanging on to their every word.
This question however, Rick wasn't prepared for. And apparently neither was Kate.
"Ah, I'm sorry?" Rick fumbled, as Kate hurriedly drank a glass of water.
Liz shifted in her seat and tucked a few stray hairs behind her ear before re-wording her question. "I mean, how did you two meet? You must admit it's not every day a well known celebrity gets into a relationship with a member of the public. Especially a cop."
Kate turned to Castle, and pursing her lips, she cleared her throat. "Ah, I think Rick here would like to handle this question. He just loves telling this story," she said with a teasing glint in her eye.
Rick turned to her and shot her a glare.
He knew it. She was trying to cruely punish him for this.
"Ah, well," Rick began, gazing over the brown walls of the room.
He was searching for some kind of inspiration, anything, until he briefly noticed Kate from the corner of his eye. No way-
She was trying to contain a laugh. He couldn't believe it. She was actually finding some kind amusement in all of this.
To hell with it. If Kate was having fun, then so would he.
Clasping his hands together on his lap, Rick sat up straighter and put on his best narrator voice he could muster. "Okay, so it was late at night, and there I was, perusing the streets of New York as us brooding writers do. I thought I was all alone, the streets seemed empty, until I noticed this woman."
"Kate," Liz gasped.
Oh boy. The poor girl was oblivious, almost falling out of her seat as she attempted to get closer, completely entranced by his storytelling.
"That's right," Rick confirmed with a dramatic whisper. "Anyway, she was walking home from work, unaware of the two ruthless street thugs following her. She looked worried, so sensing trouble, I-"
"I'm sorry," Kate interrupted. "But as a highly trained police officer who had a gun, you might want to explain why I couldn't defend myself. You know, for the sake of the interview."
Rick turned to Kate with narrowed eyes. Oh, he could see what she was trying to do. Funny.
"No problems, Honey," Rick answered with a teasing smile.
Ha, he received a little frown from her for that one.
"She was tired after just finishing a long shift. Very long shift," he highlighted. "Anyway, if you had let me finish, I would have explained how the duo, well they turned into a quartet. Way too many for her to handle by herself," he explained to Liz with a comical nod. "So, moving on, I sensed trouble and despite the danger I was putting myself in, I bravely approached and told the men to leave her alone. Thankful for my assistance-"
"Oh no, you missed the best bit," Kate quickly spoke. "Tell Liz how you got the 'duo turned quartet of ruthless street thugs' to leave me alone with just your words," she challenged with a dry tone. "This is my favourite part," she whispered to Liz.
"Well, of course I was more manly then that. You know, I had to rough them up a bit. Throw in a few punches."
"You managed to take them down by yourself?" Liz gaped in admiration.
"Ah, admittedly I got tossed around a bit," Rick continued, "And at the end of it all I finished lying on my back, kinda drooped over the edge of a closed dumpster."
Kate took this opportunity to give him a look.
Ignoring her judgemental stare, he continued. "So there I was, suspended in my awkward position, when Kate approached me. She wanted to thank me for my heroics, and charmed by the good will and bravery of a stranger, she leant over and kissed me as I hung upside down..." he finished with a dramatic pause.
"Just like Spiderman," Liz murmured.
Whoa, so that's where his inspiration came from.
Kate shifted her body to face him and scoffed. "That was absolutely-"
"Beautiful," Liz finished for her, before releasing a sigh. "You know, we were thinking that to accompany the article, a photo of you two from one of your public outings would be perfect."
"Yeah, sure. Go ahead," Rick agreed with a chuckle, unbelieving that Liz bought into the whole thing.
"Although, seeing you together like this and how much you clearly care for each other, I was thinking of a different picture. How about I get one of our photographers down here, and you guys can give each other a kiss?"
"W-what?" Rick and Kate both questioned in sync.
"Well, it will be a great photo to reflect the article."
Uh-oh. So this is what they get for being such great liars.
Rick looked to Kate and slightly began to panic as he dug into his brain for a valid excuse.
"I, ah-" he began, suddenly unable to form a sentence.
"I'm sorry, but that's not going to happen," Kate blurted with a nervous chuckle.
She was right. This was not how it was going to happen.
Whoa, well, not that kissing Kate was going to happen at all, cause that would just be-
"Why not? You guys are in a loving relationship, right? Look, if you give us this photo, I can guarantee sales to be doubled. And you will also be helping me out. My boss will love it," Liz smiled, literally pleading with them to agree.
"Yeah, but you see I, I-" Kate began, before her words disappeared on her.
"Kate currently has a mean case of tonsillitis," Rick quickly interrupted, picking up from where she left off. "And she doesn't really want to go spreading it around. And I on the other hand-" he began, looking over to Kate for help.
"He just ate a tuna sandwich for lunch," she quickly explained.
Huh. Not the best excuse out there and he didn't even like tuna, but noting the disappointment on Liz's face, it was working.
"Yeah," Rick nodded in agreement, eyes wide. "And it was a big sandwich. Lots of tuna," he animatedly finished.
"If you're worried about doing it in front of me, or if you change your mind, you can give her a kiss on your way back home. We have photographers following you, so you will hardly notice them."
"Ah, thanks for the offer, but I think we will pass," Kate said with a hesitant smile as she stood. "Thank you for today, Liz," she hurriedly spoke as she shook the girl's hand. "You ready to go?" she questioned as she turned to Castle, her eyes depicting the hurry-up-and-let's-get-out-of-here look.
"Definitely," Castle agreed with a nod.
Walking out of the office building and onto the streets, Kate looked up at the grey sky. She watched as the clouds rumbled together, emitting another loud clash of thunder before she turned to Castle. "Hey, good work with the whole tonsillitis thing back there."
"Oh, yeah, thanks," he smiled. "It was a pretty close call."
"It was," Kate agreed with a shy nod. "Although, even if you didn't come up with that, there was no way we were going to kiss," Kate quickly continued as she strode by his side. "That would just have been..."
"Weird," Castle finished for her.
"Yeah, and completely awkward," she reiterated, eyes remaining directed in front of her.
"Totally," Castle blurted out. Sucking in a breath, he briefly looked back over to her. "Good, glad we were on the same page with that one," he nodded.
Continuing to walk side by side, they were met with a short silence, before Kate pressed on. "Although, I can't say the same about your little narrative back there."
"What are you talking about?" Castle innocently questioned.
"Saving me from street thugs? Me kissing you upside down? You literally plagiarised the whole thing!"
"I did not!" Castle began in mock shock as he spun his head towards Kate.
With another roar of thunder sounding above them, Kate displayed one of her unbelieving glares, so Castle admitted defeat.
"Okay, fine. But it wasn't plagiarism, it's called finding inspiration. It was the best idea I could think of on the spot. I was under a lot of pressure," he logically justified.
"I just can't believe she actually believed you, I mean, all you needed was the rain and it would have been dead on..."
"Well, I thought it was romantic. I was going for the hero swoops in on the damsel in distress angle."
Just as he finished, another loud crack of thunder filled the clouds. Looking up, Rick continued. "Although speaking of rain, we should probably get under shelter, it looks like it's going to bucket down any second," he advised.
"Actually, I'm going home," Kate informed.
It had been an interesting day to say the least and she was looking forward to a quiet afternoon.
"Besides, don't you have to go continue your quest of saving the women of New York from street thugs, Spidey?" she mocked as she began to walk off.
"Oh, very funny," Castle retorted with a quirk of his lips before looking over to her."Wait, you're walking?"
"Yes, why?" Kate replied, spinning around.
"I'm serious about the rain. A thunderstorm is coming, you should catch a cab."
Kate gazed up at the sky again. He was right, it was probably going to pour, but she really felt like walking. "Well, if you let me go now, hopefully I will be able to beat it."
Castle let out a sigh and walked towards her. "You're crazy. What if you just wait a bit-" he began, before his words were cut off by a final roll of thunder and it suddenly began to pour.
"Argh!" Rick winced, hovering his hands over his head. "See? What did I tell you!" he yelled over the deafening blend of heavy rain and thunder.
Kate narrowed her eyes and attempted to look through the rain.
She really should catch a cab, but her hair was sticking to her cheeks and she was already saturated, so there was really no point. "Castle, it's only a little rain."
Castle defiantly shook his head. "There's no way I'm letting you walk in this," he began, taking a few more steps towards her and wrapping his hand around her bicep. "Look, just come over here-" he began, leading her to the side of the footpath.
"What are you doing?" she questioned, her feet automatically moving to where he was pulling her.
"I'm being chivalrous and getting you out of the rain," he adamantly responded.
Directing her to a small rooftop shelter under an old style building, Castle turned his body so he was now facing her. Continuing to walk, he hurriedly crowded her backwards until she was under cover.
Only a few feet away from the brick wall behind her, Kate let out a sigh. "Castle, you don't need to-" before she lost her footing on the wet concrete. "Whoa!"
Feeling herself slip, she instinctively shot her arms out to grasp onto Castle's shoulders, while he simultaneously reached his hands out to grip the waist of her jeans.
Holding on to her, Castle let out a slight chuckle. "Easy, I've got you," he murmured, his head faced downwards as he ensured that she was stable.
Satisfied that her feet were firmly planted and steady on the ground, Castle slowly raised his head, his face covered in a wide smile.
As soon as he did, Kate felt the air rush out of her lungs.
Kate found herself paralysed as she slowly became aware of his proximity.
She wasn't expecting to have him this close, and with their hands still placed on each other, he was standing directly in front of her with only about a foot of space between their chests.
His fringe hung low over his forehead, rain beading down and dripping off the ends, and lowering her gaze, she suddenly found herself unable to look away from the depth of his blue eyes.
Everything caved in on her as Castle's smile slowly faded and the mood suddenly shifted. She knew it was still raining, she could smell it in the air, but she could no longer hear the downpour. They could have been in the middle of a twister and she wouldn't even have realised. All she could focus on was the man standing in front of her.
"See," he began softly, pausing so he could swallow. "This is much better," he said as she stood there, completely transfixed by his words.
Kate sucked in a breath. This was the part where Castle was meant to step back. Pull away. Smile and crack a joke. Anything, to cut the thick air.
But he didn't.
Instead, he did the opposite.
Castle took a small step forwards, and Kate suddenly felt her heart pounding as he brought their bodies together.
"You know, Liz did say there would be photographers following us if we changed our mind..."
He paused, eyes completely locked on hers as he swallowed, throat muscles quivering before he continued. "About that kiss."
Kate didn't know what to do or what to think, as a tidal wave of unfamiliar thoughts and emotions flooded her mind. She was frozen, and as if entranced by his spell, she huffed out a shallow breath. "She did, didn't she?"
Everything in her head was screaming 'No!'. What the hell was she doing? She didn't want to kiss him. No, not at all.
So why wasn't she doing anything to stop it?
"Well, maybe we should just do it. You know. Get back on Paula's good side. Keep her happy," Castle hesitantly suggested.
"And it would help Liz out," Kate continued.
"It would," he agreed, slightly nodding his head.
Kate attempted to swallow, but he was so close to her she couldn't even think. "And I guess it's not like it's going to mean anything," she nervously finished.
"No, of course not," he murmured, ever so slightly leaning his face towards hers.
Oh God. It was going to happen. She was going to kiss him. Or he was going to kiss her. Either way, it was happening, and she felt powerless to stop it.
Kate glanced down at his lips, wet from either rain or anticipation, she couldn't quite tell.
"Well, I'm sure I can-" she paused, her head spinning as Castle's nose briefly bumped hers. "Suffer through it," she whispered, his parted lips now hovering over her mouth. Almost there.
Castle let out a whisper. "Good," before he finally closed the distance between them and pressed his mouth against hers.
Kate remained still as the connection overwhelmed her senses. She had no idea what was going on or what was happening. All that she knew was that it just felt...
Right.
As if testing the waters, they both began to hesitantly move their lips, creating a delicate kiss.
Although when she felt his hands on her hips tighten, her back suddenly being further pressed into the wall behind her, Kate knew this was dangerous. It was oh so dangerous, but as Castle pulled away only to quickly return to latch onto her lower lip, something sparked inside her. Heat began to race through her veins, and on a low moan, Kate matched his intensity.
She responded immediately, surprising herself as she opened to his touch. His mouth was so warm, the movement of his lips softer than she could have imagined.
Kate was slowly getting lost in the kiss. She could feel the little control she had left slipping away as Castle's hands began to move, sliding beneath her rain soaked layers to rest on the bare skin above her hips.
It was too much. She suddenly needed air. Needed to breathe.
Getting a hold of herself, Kate applied pressure to his shoulders and messily slid her lips off of his, breaking the kiss.
Castle immediately took a step back, allowing Kate to sidestep him and move away from the wall.
Clearing her throat, Kate looked off into the distance before turning back to him. "I think that should do it," she hurriedly spoke as she attempted to catch her breath.
"Yeah, well I guess we will find out in the paper tomorrow," Castle responded, eyes wide as he nodded his head.
Come on Kate, relax. It was just a business kiss. Just a business kiss. Just a-
Kate let out a nervous smile. "Great. So I've got to go, but I will see you for our next date."
Castle simply nodded. He didn't try to persuade her to remain under the shelter, wait out the storm, so taking the opportunity, Kate spun around and lifting her jacket over her head, she ran out into the rain.
And away from him.
So... thoughts?
BareWriter