Beckett walked into the precinct the next morning only to be met by a blur of mocha skin and jet black hair as she was whisked into a hug by her friend. "Girl!" Lanie said, "how was the honeymoon? You have to tell me all about it!"

"And hello to you, too, Lanie," Beckett said, continuing her march to her desk. Lanie fell into stride beside her.

"Okay, girl, spill." Realizing that Lanie wasn't going to back down, she sighed, rolled her eyes affectionately, and started in.

"It was amazing. He is amazing." She tried so desperately to hide the grin that was valiantly making its way across her face.

Lanie's eyes grew wide and she sucked in a breath, trying not to make a scene. "Okay, you and I need to have a wine night ASAP, okay?"

Beckett smiled at her friend, because she really needed to tell Lanie absolutely everything that had happened. "Yeah, we do. I'll call you, okay?"

"You better," Lanie said as she turned and walked toward the elevator. While she watched Lanie go, she spotted the boys as they were making their way into the bullpen. She also noticed Javi checking Lanie out…

Ryan smiled at her as he sat his stuff down on his desk. "And the prodigal detective returns."

"Welcome back, detective," Espo said. "I want to hear nothing of your filthy honeymooning."

Beckett rolled her eyes and replied, "I wouldn't tell you anyway." She swallowed her chuckle as their eyes grew and their jaws hung. Sitting down at her desk, she pulled her phone out and saw that she had a text message from Rick. All it said was 'Good luck today, beautiful!' She didn't try to hide the smile his text brought.

They didn't catch a body that day, so Kate was free to go at 5:30. When she gathered her stuff and headed for the elevator at 5:31, Ryan and Espo just watched her go, once again, mouths agape. Once she was gone, they looked at each other as if to say, 'What is happening?'

XXXXXXXXXX

Kate used her new key to unlock the loft and hesitantly entered. "Hello?" she called out, still feeling slightly like an intruder.

"Kate," she heard from the next room—Rick's office. "I'm in here," he said.

Following his voice, Kate dropped her bag on the coffee table and strode through the book cases into his study only to find him standing before her in a towel. She stopped dead in her tracks and stared at his bare chest until he cleared his throat.

"We didn't catch a body today, so I'm free to come with you tonight. That is if you want me to come…" she trailed off, bringing her lower lip between her teeth.

He closed the distance between them and placed a kiss to her cheek. Smiling at her, he said, "Of course I want you there." And with that, he turned around and walked through his—their—room and into the bathroom to finish getting ready.

She herself went into the bedroom and stripped down, needing to wash the precinct off her before she went to any kind of party. Kate laughed at Rick's reaction when she walked into the bathroom totally naked: he almost choked on his toothpaste.

"Rick, are you ever going to stop acting like a 15 year old when you see me naked?" The amusement in her voice made his belly do flip-flops.

He spit out his toothpaste and said, "Probably not. You're gorgeous." She smiled at him as she stepped in the shower. Once she had the water turned on and at a temperature to her satisfaction, she turned around to soak her hair, nearly screaming when she saw her husband's entire frame pressed against the glass. She laughed.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

Rick thumped his head against the glass wall and said, "I wanna join you, but I can't."

Kate laughed even harder at how he whined like a child. She placed her forehead on the other side of the wall from his. "If you behave tonight," she said seductively, "maybe I'll give you a treat."

He groaned and left the bathroom without a word. Kate rolled her eyes at him, but smiled all the same. She believed she was smitten with him.

Once she was out of the shower, Rick was already dressed and waiting on her. She brought her phone into the bathroom with her while she was fixing her hair, expecting a text from Lanie, and was half-way through putting her make-up on when she got a call. No, she thought.

She picked up the phone, and, sure enough, it was Captain Montgomery giving her the address of a murder scene. She hung up the phone, sighed, and went to deliver the bad news to Rick.

As soon as he saw her face, he knew. "You got a call," was all he said. It wasn't a question.

"Babe, I'm so sorry. I really, really wanted to go with you tonight, but there's been a murder."

Standing up, Kate's breath was caught a little at the sight of him in his suit. He was absolutely stunning, the suit fit him to perfection and brought out his blue eyes. He kissed her on the cheek and said to her, "Kate, what you do is so important. I'll never be mad at you for doing your job."

Kate smiled at him and said, "Thank you, Rick. That means a lot."

Just then, Alexis and Martha came down the stairs dressed to the 9's. When they saw the adults' expressions, Alexis's shoulders slumped. "Kate, you're not coming, are you?"

"I'm sorry, Alexis, but I have to work."

Little Castle sighed and offered a small smile to her new step-mother. "No, that's okay. I was just looking forward to having some mature company this time is all."

Kate smirked and looked at Rick. "What?" he defended. "I'm signing books and mingling at these things."

When everyone's gaze moved to Martha, she waved her hand in the air and said, "Oh, please, darlings, everyone knows my Gray-dar is on high alert at these things." Kate laughed, Rick made a disgusted face, and Alexis rolled her eyes and smiled.

Shortly thereafter, the Castle family took off, three to a party and one to a murder scene.

XXXXXXXXXX

As Beckett was arriving at the crime scene, her phone alerted her to a text message. When she opened it, she smiled at the selfie of her husband with his mother and daughter on the red carpet. She shot back a quick message: Wish I could be there. Have fun! Then she steeled herself against what was to come and stepped out of the car.

Her stomach dropped when she saw the crime scene. She had seen it dozens of times on the pages of a book: his book. Her husband's book. Was it someone he knew? Someone important to him? And then: Was he somehow involved?

Once they were done at the crime scene, she said she would bring him in for questioning. She arrived at the party, trying not to look completely miserable and worry her new family. As she was walking around looking for him, she saw a flash of red that alerted her to his presence.

"Kate!" she heard Alexis shout over the music. Rick spun around and grinned at her, standing up and making his way over to her.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, placing a kiss to her cheek. "I thought you guys caught a body?"

She glanced at her feet before responding. "We did."

He stooped to meet her eye. "Kate, honey, what's wrong?"

She looked up at him, could only mutter a whisper as she said, "Rick, I need you to come with me, okay?"

Confusion spread across his features, but he nodded and reached for Alexis. "Come on, sweetheart, we have to go to the station with Kate."

"What? Why?" Alexis asked.

Kate tried to smile at her and said, "I just need to ask your dad some questions about our victim, okay? Nothing to worry about."

Nodding, still a little unnerved, the teenager followed them toward the exit. They snagged Martha away from her man of the hour and, together, they rode down to the station.

XXXXXXXXXX

Kate interviewed her husband, but had to get stern with him when he wasn't taking the situation seriously enough.

"Rick, did you know the victim?" she prompted, sliding a picture across the table toward him.

Taking it, he looked it over. "No, I have no idea who she is." Then, looking at his wife. "Kate, are you going to tell me what this is about?"

Kate sighed and then slid a photo of the crime scene across the table toward him. He stared at it silently, then looked up at her with wide eyes.

"This is so cool!" He almost shouted it.

"Excuse me?" Beckett asked incredulously. "Cool? Castle, this killer could be after you?"

He actually looked like a kid on Christmas morning. "Yeah, but you won't let that happen, now will you?" He smirked when she rolled her eyes and sighed her frustration. "Thought so. Can I help?"

Beckett's face contorted. "Help? Help what?"

"Help you! You know, solve the murder. Husband and wife fighting crime together, kicking ass and taking names."

Kate eyed him for a moment before saying, "Stay here, I'll be right back." Leaving the room, Castle continued to look over the crime scene photos and speed-read the case file. When Beckett came back, she said to him, "Montgomery said you could help me on this if you promise to be careful, okay?"

XXXXXXXXXX

Once the case was over, Kate had a much better understanding of Richard Castle as a person. He was light-hearted, fun, very smart, witty, driven, compassionate, and he took some of the tension out of the work they had to do. And that terrified Kate. She couldn't let her guard down, needed to remain on high alert to keep herself and her team safe while they hunted killers. Her job required focus, and it was hard to do that with Castle around; his jokes and wild theories made it difficult to concentrate sometimes.

But he also thought outside the box, which had come in handy when they suspected the schizophrenic kid. That was something else that irked her, too. She had been wrong. She had seen a kid with a mental illness and piles of evidence and just assumed. It made her a little jealous that Castle had come up with it first.

As she stood next to him in their bathroom brushing her teeth, she realized that none of it really mattered anymore because the case was over. Life had gone on as it had before and Rick wouldn't interfere with her work again.

Standing next to her, Rick was brushing his teeth, too, thinking about how much fun he had had working with his wife and her team, how good it felt catching the killer, stretching his brain in a way he didn't get to do for real people. He glanced at his wife in the mirror. She was so deep in thought and he couldn't help but feel little tingles in his belly at the crinkle in her forehead, the intensity in her eyes as she worked through whatever it was that had her thinking so hard.

He spit, rinsed, and wiped his face on the towel, his eyes never leaving her face. "Kate, are you okay? Seems like something's bothering you."

"Oh," she said around her toothbrush, a little startled. "No, Rick, I'm fine. Just thinking about today is all." She smiled at him, the only form of reassurance she could manage at the time.

He smiled back at her. "I'll meet you in bed, okay?"

Kate nodded and he left. She finished up in the bathroom and crawled into bed beside her husband, snuggling up close. "Thank you for your help today," she said quietly. His heart beat steadily under her ear, the noise lulling her to sleep already.

"Always," he said. He could tell Kate was falling asleep as her breathing evened out, but he wasn't tired. Plot lines for a new book series were running through his head, plot lines about a smart, savvy female detective fighting to keep the streets of New York safe. He stayed like that for hours, her head on his chest, his arms around her tracing patterns on her shoulder, dreaming of an alternate dimension just for them.