On re-watching A Chill Goes Through Her Veins recently, I noticed that in the scene where Beckett goes to Castle's loft, and then next when they go to the crime scene, they're wearing different clothes. So she visited Castle at night; they went to the victim's apartment in the morning.

My brain started humming.

Chapter 54: 1x5, A Chill Goes Through Her Veins 2

I don't want to pretend.

Scared you'll like it?

He has to give Kate Beckett credit; apart from the cocked head and quizzical "Hi?" that sounded more like a question than a greeting, she's remarkably unfazed by the chaos of the Castle household, laser tag and all.

She simply follows him into his study, watching as he extricates himself from his laser tag gear. He watches her looking around curiously, taking in the bookshelves, his beloved skull lamp, the warm, calm atmosphere of this room he spends so much time in. She seems particularly intrigued by his smartboard, poking at it carefully. "Looks a lot like our murder board."

"Yeah, except mine's fake."

She stares at him for a long moment. "Yeah."

"Something wrong?"

"I can't find it."

There's a brittleness to her, a kind of tension he's not seen from this flinty, clever woman. She looks young.

"Find what?"

"The answer."

The case. She's here because she's stuck on the case. He tries not to let his excitement show, because she's clearly troubled, but this? - she's willingly coming to him for help?

This is amazing.

They talk through it, and though it helps, they're stuck. How did the killer get rid of the body. It's a question he's had to tackle before, multiple times, and wow, it's a lot trickier when he can't just type the words he dropped the body into the back of his giant windowless van or the apartment was right next to the river so he just dropped the body out the window and no one saw it the end.

He finally gives up. CIA will probably not be the right answer this time, so he's out of ideas. "You know what helps?"

"Yeah?"

"Sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out how a character of mine does something, I'll walk the crime scene. This one time, I was trying to figure out how to throw someone off the Empire State Building, and that movie Sleepless in Seattle had just come out." He grins. "So many lonely women approached me, thinking I was their Tom Hanks. I got laid -"

"Castle."

Oh. Maybe not the time. "Point is, you want to get into the killer's head? Go to where the killer was and see what problems he had to face. Field trip?"

She blinks at him for a moment, and he wonders if he's unwittingly said something stupid.

"That's a good idea. I think it might help."

"So let's go! Right now. I'll get my coat"

She purses her lips, shaking her head briefly. "Castle. It's after ten. Why don't we wait until morning?"

"What? Oh. I guess you're right." So much for his flash of genius.

She shoots him a soft smile. "We'll go tomorrow, okay? First thing."

"Good. Sounds good. This one -" he wonders, fleetingly, if he's overstepping, but isn't that their entire relationship? - "it, uh. It seems to be getting to you."

She looks up sharply, a flicker of shock in her eyes, and he knows he's cut too close. "Sorry. I just -" He doesn't know what to say.

Funny, how much easier it is to just be the local idiot outsider at the precinct.

"No, it's - it's okay."

Her voice is quiet, the edge in it gone. This is a new version of Kate Beckett. He's never seen her like this. That flinty attitude she wears around him, her armor, is gone.

She's vulnerable.

He wonders what it would take for her to let him hug her. Or, well. To call her Kate.

"Why'd you come here?"

She shrugs. "I don't know." She gives him a half-smile, without a lot of mirth in it. "Maybe I thought you could help."

Help. He wants to help. He's desperate to be useful. "What can I do?"

She smiles wryly. "Not much, I'm afraid. I guess I didn't really think this through." She sighs, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. "I'm sorry for bothering you."

"Not at all. I'm glad you came. You know, you're always welcome here. Any time. Really."

Beckett's looking at him with an expression he can't quite read - her eyes are very bright, and there's something in the line of her mouth that gives him pause, tells him to let her lead here.

"You mean that?"

He nods, wordless at first because he's not sure what to say, but then before he can find words, she's suddenly kissing him and he can't breathe.

It's over in a moment, leaving him startled, frozen, with just the phantom warmth of her mouth on his. She looks up at him with those big, rich hazel eyes, and he just can't stop himself. He leans in and kisses her again, long and slow and deliberate. He can feel her eyelashes flutter against his face, the taut energy humming under her skin.

It's too much, too soon, and he steals his hand to her cheek, cupping her cheek gently, before letting her go.

He - just - he -

She looks so young, honestly, she looks like a girl and he probably shouldn't care about her this much, this quickly, but he's in over his head. Sometimes he forgets that he's got ten years on her, but he's willing to bet she's got the lion's share of the wisdom in this partnership, too much gleaned from whatever the great tragedy is that's shaped her past.

He wonders if she'll ever tell him what happened.

She's got this hesitant look on her face, like she's afraid he might take advantage of her sudden lapse of self-control, and he needs her to know that he's not that person.

He threads his fingers through hers. Her hands are slim, graceful, softer than he'd expect, and when her thumb traces gently over the back of his hand, his throat gets tight.

Beckett lives alone, doesn't she?

He has this sudden vision of her sitting quietly on a couch, all alone, in a dingy apartment that's probably not actually as dimly lit or sparsely furnished as he's imagining, but his writer's brain is conjuring up some lonesome, dank little cavern or possibly just a leaky grey tent on a rooftop somewhere, and before he can think about it, he blurts out, "You should stay."

Her eyes go wide, and he hurries to explain himself. "I mean. Just - not like that. We could watch a movie. Or play laser tag. Or fence."

Her expression goes from startled to bemused, and it's just so adorable that he really desperately wants to kiss her again. "Fencing?"

"I'm prepared to defend you nobly with my foil," he assured her solemnly. "Or, you know. My laser gun."

"As reassuring as that is, you can keep the weapons holstered," she says, her mouth curving up in the smile that she usually tries to hide.

"Can I at least interest you in a glass of wine? I have very good wine." He just can't stop talking, mostly because he's afraid he doesn't know how to hold onto this fragile, delicate moment that started the moment she kissed him. "And I have Batman wineglasses. Alexis got them for me a year ago. You can even use the Batman one. I'll use the Robin one."

Her eyes are dancing. Wow. Smooth, Rick. "What a sacrifice, Castle."

"It seems only fitting."

He wants to say something else, because based on the past three minutes, kissing seems to be a thing they do now and he'd like it to stay that way, but soft, vulnerable Kate Beckett is all kinds of mind-blowing and he feels stupider than usual.

"All right." She accepts defeat. "One glass."

"I promise you'll enjoy it."

He ushers her back out towards the kitchen, musing over the chance he might get to kiss her again. She stops and glances back at him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

"You're not as much of an asshole as you pretend to be, are you?"

"I'm hoping that can stay between us."

She grins at that, her nose wrinkling in the most adorable way possible, and she leans in for a brief kiss that makes his chest ache and his breath catch in his throat.

"Your secret's safe with me."