A/N: Oh, wow! I definitely didn't think that over a hundred people would jump on this story as they have. So thank you so much for following along, I really appreciate it!

Kate has no more than disappeared through the double doors of the suite before Ryan and Esposito are at his side, the pair of them wearing matching expressions of surprise.

"You and Beckett," Ryan says, his tone almost sounding like he's looking for confirmation in light of his partner sharing the news with him.

"Yeah, me and Beckett," Rick replies, still gazing at the spot where he had last seen her, absurd in his hope that if he doesn't move his eyes from that space that Kate will appear again. Even so, he's not so wholly absorbed in his vigil that he doesn't notice the pregnant pause from the two cops who are flanking him, nor does he miss the loaded look that they exchange. "What?"

"How….."

"How did we meet?" The grin forms without his permission, though he does tamp down on the light chuckle that wants to escape. His memories of Kate Beckett coming into his life are still crystal clear, if only for the profound effect it had on him "Her third month on the job; I stole a police horse and she arrested me for theft and public nudity. And when I got out of lock up, I asked her out."

"And she said yes?" Esposito asks with a laugh.

"She did," Rick confirms, "Took her out for breakfast that morning, actually."

There's a distinctive furrow between Ryan's eyebrows, the detective hastily trying to do the math and figure out their history, but Rick stops him short, "We were together for a year and a half, detective."

"I wasn't asking…." Ryan says with an embarrassed shake of his head.

"Your mouth wasn't, but the rest of your face was," he replies, watching Espo struggle to turn his laugh into a cough even as Ryan looks like he wants to ask more questions. Even Esposito, Rick is sure, wouldn't mind extracting every morsel of information he can about his past with Kate, but an approaching uniform saves Rick from an interrogation.

Officer Johnston is looking at the small reporter's notebook in his hand when he stops next to them, undoubtedly double checking that he has all his facts straight before he speaks. He passes a printed list of names that's been in his other hand to Esposito, and Rick can see the neat check marks beside each one, "We've completed interviews with everyone on your list except one," Johnston says, pointing to the unchecked named about halfway down the page; Mike Weitz. "No one seems to know where Mr. Weitz is, but he's another groomsmen in the wedding."

"Oh God," the moan of distress is quiet, but all four of the men turn as one towards the voice. Lanie's standing just behind them, her face stricken at the latest turn in the case, "The last time I saw Mike was at the end of the rehearsal dinner last night." The doctor pauses to swallow, lifting her shawl up so that it covers her bare shoulders, her dark eyes swiveling to Ryan, Esposito, Castle and Officer Johnston in turn, "And he was with Sophie."

That quiet declaration has the effect of setting the two detectives into motion, Esposito immediately tugging out his phone and Ryan turning towards the crowd.

"Hey!" Kevin's voice rings out like a bell, raised as loudly as it is about the soft chatter of the group milling around the hotel suite, "Anyone seen Mike Wietz today?"

The ensuing silence answers the question on its own, though Rick sees a few shrugs or the shake of a head. Behind him, Esposito's voice is urgent, quietly requesting an APB for Mike and that all officers be on the lookout. With the tense silence that has enveloped the room, that particular statement is easily heard, and just like that the room changes from politely concerned to completely worried.

With the new tension in the room, the group chatter also shifts, no longer is it calm conversation but now the room is full of urgent whispers and questions posed at the three of them when Espo hangs up his phone.

"The APB is just a precaution, no one should worry," Ryan tells the group, though all of them can tell it didn't do any good. Knowing that he tried, Ryan gives Castle a shrug as they follow Esposito back into the hall, Officer Johnston following in their wake after Espo's quiet request.

Within five minutes, the uniforms have been divided into groups of three and assigned floors of the hotel to search. As usual, Castle follows Ryan and Esposito, who head towards the opposite end of the hotel hallway, intent on searching the bridal party's floor first.

"Thank you so much for coming."

She's lost count of how many times those words have fallen out of her mouth in the last hour. The hall where cocktail hour would be held between the wedding ceremony and the reception is full of people, all of them sipping on champagne and hors d'oeuvres between fervent chatter and sneaky looks back towards she and Will.

As the latest pair of guests retreat and flag down the closest waiter to snag two glasses from the tray he carries, Kate allows the fake smile she's plastered on her face to drop, rubbing anxiously at the slight headache that seems to be building between her eyebrows.

"Hey, drink this," Will's voice is soft at her side, pressing a bottle of water into her unoccupied hand. The appearance of the bottle surprises her, an expression that carries over to her fiancé who is looking at her with a sheepish little smile, "I haven't seen you drink anything in hours, Kate. Your headache is probably as much dehydration as stress."

He's always taking care of her, Kate thinks as she twists off the plastic cap and lifts the bottle to her lips. The liquid sliding down her throat doesn't exactly ease the ache in her head, but it does help soothe her dry mouth and refocus herself after an endless parade of curious people that she barely knows; all of them seemingly more interested in the gory details of murder than anything about the wedding.

But, really, that was to be expected; Will had told her a month ago that he barely knew most of the people on the guest list, that most of them were people his mother knew through society circles and charity boards. A few others were old contacts and investors in his father's business, but neither she nor Will had enough friends or family to equal to the 350 guests that Eleanor Sorenson had invited to their wedding.

"Thanks," she says once she's polished off half the bottle, slipping her free hand into his to give it a squeeze, "Some day we're having, isn't it?"

"That's an understatement," Will sighs, his blue eyes going glassy and unfocused. Without asking, Kate knows he's probably thinking about Sophie. "It's hard to believe she's dead, you know?"

She does know because the same thought had been circling in her head all day. Even though she'd hurried down the hall to Sophie's room when Laurie's yell had sounded, even though she and Lanie had met one another's gaze in horror when they'd seen those blank blue eyes and the bruising on her neck; none of it seemed real. It seemed like a terrible dream.

Castle being part of the investigating team only added to it.

"I know," she agrees, resting her head against Will's shoulder for just a moment, "But Esposito and Ryan are very good at their jobs, and they'll catch who did this….."

"And what about Castle?"

Though he says it casually, Kate can feel the way the muscles in his body tense at the mention of the writer. He doesn't like Rick, of that much she is certain, but she pushes away the idea of dwelling on why. There's enough to worry about and figure out before throwing her past with Richard Castle into the mix. "Well…." she pauses for a moment, trying to think up a honest and non incriminating way to answer the question, "He's got the mind of a cop, always has, he just uses it to write books rather than solve murders."

The grunt of acknowledgement Will gives is unconvincing, and it tugs at the layer of frustration that's settled on the day with enough force that Kate untangles herself from him, finishing off the bottle of water in three big sips before giving an underhanded toss towards the trash can and hearing the soft thunk of the plastic falling to the bottom of the container. "I didn't ask for him to be here, Will," Kate adds when she turns back towards her fiancé, "I was as surprised as you were."

Whatever emotion it is that slides across Will's face, she can't put a name to it, but there is something wary and odd about the way his eyes flash. "Surprised, that's one word for it," he murmurs, more to himself than to her.

It's on the tip of her tongue to ask him what exactly he isn't saying, but the words dissolve before she can unleash them. Instead Kate turns towards another group of guests, and once again gives the same explanation about the postponement and, yet again, hears the same platitudes and apologies for their having to wait longer to be married.

"Thank you," Will tells the quartet, the politeness painted onto his face an obvious clue to Kate that he has no idea who any of these people are. "We have champagne and hors d'oeuvres that will be served for the next hour. Consider it as a thank you for traveling all this way for nothing. Please help yourselves."

With the latest set of guests sent on their way, Kate turns back to him with a long sigh, her eyes narrowed towards Will for a long, searching look, "Are you going to tell me what bothers you about Rick, or am I going to have to guess?"

He at least has the grace to look apologetic, though it doesn't stop him from grabbing a passing flute of champagne as a waiter passes and gulping half of it in one go, "I just think…" Will starts, pressing his lips together as if he's going to back out on his confession. Kate pins him with one of her glares and he sighs, eyes downcast to stare into the bubbling surface of his drink. "I think Castle still has a thing for you," he says, eyes rising to meet hers, "I saw his face when he came in the suite, when he was talking to you and he just….."

"He what?" she prompts, careful to keep anything aggressive out of her voice, even if her heart is beating double time.

"He looks at you like I do," Will says, bringing the glass back to his mouth. "Like a man who is desperately in love."

There is a swooping sensation in her abdomen at those words, something indefinable blooming and stretching outward until her skin starts to tingle, but just as quickly, there is a flood of guilt that extinguishes the fire. She shouldn't care what Rick Castle does or doesn't do in regards to her, it's not Castle that she loves, it's Will.

"Will, that's absurd," she tells him, her voice forceful as if she's trying to convince the both of them. "Even if Castle did look at me like that, it's just reminiscing. I haven't talked to him in seven years, he can't possibly still be in love with me."

"And besides, I love you," she adds, her hand lifting to touch his face, fingers gentle in how they cup his cheek and force his eyes to hers. Whatever the rest of it all means, whatever lingering attachment she has to Castle, Kate knows that she's telling him the truth. She does love him.

"Kate…."

"There you are!"

Whatever Will had been planning to say is over ran by his mother's voice, her brunette hair done up in an elegant french twist and a diamond necklace sparkling at her throat with earrings to match. Eleanor's dress is a bright turquoise, exactly the sort of color that ensures she won't be missed in the crowd and just happens to clash fantastically with the rest of the wedding decor.

The colors for the wedding had been one of the few things Kate had been adamant about, refusing to budge at the suggestions of her future mother-in-law and the wedding planner she had hired.

She wouldn't be surprised if Eleanor had picked her dress with specific purpose, her determination to always be noticed working in tandem with the desire to thumb her nose at Kate's unwillingness to concede on a color scheme.

"I've just been talking to the concierge and the event director at the hotel," Eleanor tells them as she approaches, stepping up to kiss Will on the cheek but making no move to greet Kate at all, "It took a bit of greasing palms from your Uncle Teddy, but they've agreed to let us use the hall in three weeks. So, in ten minutes, I need the two of you to go over by the string quartet and make the announcement for the new date. February 12; the ceremony will be at 6 p.m."

Maybe it's their chosen professions and the knowledge of how long it can take to close a case, or just their agreement that Will's mother is exhausting, but Kate meets his eyes for a brief glance, relieved to see that he's just as unwilling to follow the instructions as she is. "Mother….." he begins softly, sighing at the way Eleanor's eyes immediately spark with annoyance.

"William, Teddy and I went to a lot of trouble to make this happen," Eleanor rebukes him quickly as Teddy saddles up on her right with a bright smile.

"And we are both very grateful for that," Kate says quickly, "But we both think that it'd be best to wait until everything has been settled with Sophie's murder, give everyone a chance to get some distance from it all."

"I would think three weeks is plenty of time," his mother says, and though her voice is sticky sweet, the dark undertone of anger and impatience is easily heard, "It isn't as if you were particularly close to her, Katherine. She was Will's friend, and he certainly understands that it's important we give a good impression. We wouldn't want people thinking that the two of you are going to call this thing off." Eleanor tops off her words with a smile, as if daring Kate to challenge her in front of Will.

She doesn't, even if she knows Eleanor would love nothing more than for she and Will to call off their engagement.

"We would rather wait," Will interjects before his mother can continue talking, plowing right over any objection that she's opened her mouth to make, "Sophie's case might not even be closed in three weeks."

Teddy and Eleanor both scoff in turn at that, the man rolling his eyes as Eleanor shakes her head in disappointment. "Well, what can you expect from that lot," she sighs, "You really should call your friends at the FBI Will, they could have this sorted in no time, and we could all move on…."

"Detectives Ryan and Esposito are some of the best the city has to offer," Kate tells them both, aware that her voice has taken on a hard edge though she makes no move to correct it, "And there is nothing about the case to bring it into the FBI's jurisdiction, Will would be reprimanded for trying to abuse federal resources if he even suggested it. Maybe if you took an interest in what we both do for a living, you would know that by now, Eleanor."

Kate considers the high patches of color that appear on Eleanor's cheeks to be it's own sort of victory, especially as she seems to have left the woman speechless. Teddy looks equally shocked, one hand extended to lay on Eleanor's arm as Will tries to turn his chuckle into a quick cough.

She's tangled her fingers back together with Will's by the time Eleanor looks to have gotten her voice back, tugging him away from his mother and uncle with a quick grin, "Maybe Uncle Teddy can get his money back?" Will asks over his shoulder as they scamper away, Kate's eyes focused on the opposite side of the room where Will's best man Keith is standing.

"Here man, drink this."

Esposito hands over a glass of water, which Mike Weitz tips to his mouth and drains in one go before handing it back over with a request for another. Automatically, Castle turns to pick up the pitcher with one hand, accepting the glass from Espo with the other.

"Alright, Mike," Ryan says over the splash of water, "Walk us through what happened last night."

Mike sucks down a big gulp of air, wiping a shirtsleeve across a forehead still beaded with sweat, "Nothing really. I went to the rehearsal dinner, you know? Had a good time, drank a bit, told some stories on Will, the usual stuff. And at the end of the night, we were all sitting at the bar having drinks and Sophie starts coming on to me, you know? Flirting, touching me, giving me those looks that girls send when they want you to take them to bed, and I was up for that. She's an attractive girl, you know? The kind that I'd definitely go for."

He pauses in his story to accept the glass from Castle, taking one more long drink that's followed by another heaving sigh. "I asked her if she wanted to go up to my room, and she told me that she did but she wanted to buy me a drink first. That bitch spiked my drink! Not even ten minutes after I'd finished it, I started feeling funny. She told me she'd get me to my room and instead she locked me in that storage room and took my keycard!"

With another long series of gulps, Mike drains his second glass of water, meeting the eyes of each of the men in turn. "Who the hell roofies a guy? All you've got to do is ask!"

"Well, given Sophie's behavior we don't think she had any intention of sleeping with you…." Ryan says, lifting his eyes from his notebook to stare at Mike.

"So what was she trying to do?"

"That's what we are going to figure out," Esposito replies, turning towards the main door of the hotel room as it opens and Will strides through it.

"Mike, man, are you okay?" Will asks, hurrying over to sit next to him as Mike nods. "What the hell happened, Keith just told me you were missing?"

"Sophie," Mike says darkly, meeting Esposito's eyes before looking at Will, "She drugged me, locked me in a storage room."

Maybe Rick sees it because he's watching Will so closely, but there's just a flicker of something in his gaze, the slightest break of understanding that's quickly masked by concern for his friend and outrage that any of this could have happened. Suddenly, Will's every bit an FBI Agent. He's on his feet in an instant demanding answers from Ryan and Esposito about what they've found out so far.

"We've got some good leads," Espo says, his voice calm and even despite Will's yelling, "And we're going to follow up on them, but I'm going to ask you if you noticed anything odd with Sophie last night at the rehearsal dinner."

The question forces Will to stop yelling, long fingers running down his face as he closes his eyes and tries to think back to the previous night. "The only thing I remember is that I got annoyed with her because she answered a phone call during Mike's speech," he sighs, "Right after she finished the call she left the room for a few minutes. I knew that Sophie would normally never do such a thing, so I wanted to ask her what was going on. But she seemed fine when I talked to her later, and Uncle Teddy came over to drag me to the bar for tequila shots right when I planned to bring it up."

"Okay, that's great," Ryan says, flipping to a new page in his notebook, "Do you have any idea when approximately that was? I can check her phone records and….."

The rest of the conversation is lost on Castle as Mike strolls over to the mini-fridge and snags a bag of M&M's from it, ripping the bag open with his teeth and spilling a portion of the candy into his mouth. Despite himself, he had been hoping that Kate would follow Will to afford him another chance to talk to her, but as the minutes tick by there's no sign of the erstwhile bride.

Where is she? Where would she go? Rick asks himself, grinning as Mike again chomps on the chocolate candies with relish.

Once he had known another person with a weakness for chocolate, and just like that, he knows exactly where to find Kate Beckett.

The ballroom is decorated in deep purple and silver, accents of navy with the lightest dash of pink. Even if the color scheme is Kate through and through, Rick has a hard time reconciling the woman he knew with someone who would want large satin bows adoring three hundred chairs, and a gaudy crystal lamp surrounded by wreaths of roses and tulips topping every table.

He knows for a fact that Kate hates tulips, that she prefers lilies and orchids. He had always considered her taste in flowers to be a little eccentric; she'd blushed furiously and spent the whole night kissing him the first time he'd given her roses, a traditional flower if there ever was one, but left to her own devices she had always gone for the unexpected and, in time, he had learned to do the same in picking flowers for her.

"So who designed this?" he asks, smiling when the shadow that he can see hovering behind the enormous eight-tiered wedding cake flinches. It's a beat later before those familiar eyes and that beautiful face leaning past the cake to stare at him, a surprised grin playing at her mouth. "I know it wasn't you."

"My eventual mother-in-law," Kate tells him, running one slender finger around the largest tier until it's covered in chocolate icing. She wastes no time in lifting it to her mouth and sucking the stuff off, somehow managing to be both adorable and devastatingly sexy with that one small action. "She puts a lot of stock into appearances. The more extravagant, the better," she continues with a frown, sizing him up as Rick strolls across the floor, "How did you find me?"

"I thought about where you'd expect no one to look for you," he explains, gesturing to the room at large. "And where there would be chocolate."

She blushes at that, those long curls falling forward to hide her face for just a moment. "Mmm, no one would be looking for me at my wedding, that's for sure," Kate replies, picking up the elaborate silver knife and twirling it in her hand, "And it's a shame to let this thing go to waste, so…." With a sly grin, she sinks the knife into the bottom tier, carving out a decent sized piece of cake that she neatly transfers to a small china plate and passes to him. "Forks are on the tables."

While she busies herself with cutting a second piece, Rick moves to the nearest table, sinking into a chair that affords him a fantastic view of Kate's backside. In that dress her ass is on perfect display; toned, curved and wonderful to look at.

He knows she's caught him at it when she abruptly turns, her own plate topped with chocolate cake and two strawberries picked from the table garnish. She doesn't chastise him for staring, but that soft rosy blush is back on her cheeks, and her mouth is screwed up in one of those smiles that she used to give him when she couldn't quite keep a straight face.

He's thrilled to see it, and just as happy to have Kate sliding into a chair beside him, pinning him with those dark green eyes. "I should be married by now," she tells him, her eyes slowly roving over the room, taking in the expansive decor and all the empty chairs.

"Yes, you should," he agrees, aware by the way her nostrils flare that she didn't miss the dual meaning of his words. "And that's quite an accomplishment," Rick hurries to add, his tone light hearted even though there's a small ache somewhere deep in his chest that he isn't the guy who put a diamond ring on her finger, "Given that you spent so much time telling me that marriage was a jurassic institution."

Her laugh is bright and clear when it comes, her head tipping up towards the ceiling so that her thick brunette hair cascades down her back in those soft curls, "At the time I truly thought that was the case," Kate admits with a grin, her eyes sparkling with delight at the memory of her headstrong 24-year-old ideals.

"Well, I'm glad you found someone that made you change your mind," Rick tells her slowly, though the smile he gives her is forced. Even if he is happy for her there would always be that part of him that wondered why he couldn't have been the one to spend his life making her happy. Why did Will Sorenson get to be the guy? Why couldn't it have been him?

Kate's tugged her bottom lip between her teeth at his words, some of the joy leaking out of her eyes as she observes him. For a moment she looks torn on whatever it is she planned to say, hesitating even though her mouth has already opened to give her thoughts a voice. "I….." she begins, eyes staring down at her untouched cake until they lift up to meet his own, "I wouldn't assume that Will's the one who made me change my mind," Kate confesses, her voice barely above a whisper.

The admission knocks all the air out of him, leaving Rick unable to do anything but stare at Kate in complete surprise. She'd certainly never shared that with him when they were together, always insisting that marriage wasn't anything that she needed in life, that she was quite happy just being his girlfriend.

Not that it had stopped him from buying an engagement ring and hiding it in the depths of his closet. He had always wondered if Kate found it, if that had played a role in her decision to leave.

"Some girls would look at today and think that it's a sign..." she adds just as softly, those eyes cutting across to meet his.

"Some girls, sure," he concedes, giving her a soft smile, "But not Katherine Beckett. She doesn't believe in signs, or fate, or destiny..." Rick's teasing her when he says it, countless memories of arguments about the existence of everything from time travel to Bigfoot. Kate didn't believe in much of anything while he, generally, believed in the possibility of anything. And what he would discount? Rick had pretended to believe in it, just for the pleasure of seeing Kate get riled up.

"But I believe in you, which is far more important," Kate tells him, something so precious and so breathtaking swimming in those green eyes that he can't help but lean forward, his heart hammering against his ribs. It's the second time she's confessed something to him that he'd once have given nearly anything to hear her say, whispered words that are a balm to a heart that's still smarting from letting her slip out of his front door and out of his life without truly giving in to a proper fight to keep her.

"Kate…." Rick breaths out her name on a sigh, his voice catching on the sharp T at the back of her name. She's so close to him now, close enough that she must have leaned forward on her own accord because he can't have possibly covered that distance all alone. And she's looking at him with expectation, a yearning in her eyes that means he just has to kiss...

"Hey, Castle," Espo's voice echoes in the large room, by the time Rick has jumped away from Kate and turned to look at him, it's clear from the cringing expression that Esposito is making that he knows he's interrupted something important. "We're leaving now, if you need a ride. I didn't want to leave you stranded."

His instinct is to say no, to tell him that he'll catch a cab and meet up with him later, but Kate's getting to her feet, something brittle about the way she's moving and what he could swear is the glimmer of tears in her eyes. "I need to get back upstairs, Will is probably looking for me," she tells both he and Esposito, quickly striding towards a side door and slipping out before Rick can so much as form a word of protest.

Still, he meets Esposito's eyes with a helpless shrug, and his friend gives that same low whistle as he heard that morning when he first saw Kate. "Bro, you've got it bad, don't you?" he asks, stepping forward to slap Rick on the back and escort him towards the exit.