Author's note: I recently finished my fic 'Correspondence', where Castle and Beckett are separated by distance and have to communicate in other ways. I thought it would be interesting to explore the opposite situation, where both of them are together but removed from the familiar environment of the 12th Precinct.

Castle glanced again toward Gates's office, where he could see the Captain and Beckett engaged in a heated discussion. His partner had been called in there just over ten minutes ago, and the situation had deteriorated rapidly.

He couldn't actually hear anything that was being said, but the tones of the two women's voices told him all he needed to know.

He got up and walked over towards Ryan and Esposito, and leaned against Ryan's desk.

"What do you think it's about?" Ryan asked, and Castle shook his head.

"I think Gates is chewing her out for punching that suspect," Esposito said, with a grin on his face, and Ryan frowned.

"That was a week ago," Ryan replied, "and it was self defence."

"You know that and I know that, but the Captain has to give her the big lecture anyway."

"That's not what it's about," Ryan muttered, and Esposito folded his arms.

"You got a better idea?"

"I think it's about being late with filing the paperwork from that case with the guy from the circus," Ryan replied. "What was the vic's name? Harrison? Something like that."

Esposito tilted his head and shrugged. "Maybe. What do you think, Castle?"

"I think Gates is finally going to ban me from the precinct," Castle said, not looking away from the glass-panelled office just across the bullpen, where he could now see Beckett gesticulating in frustration, and Gates shaking her head.

Ryan looked worried. "But you could just call the Mayor, right?" he asked, and Castle frowned.

"Maybe. Probably. I dunno; I just have a bad feeling about this, guys."

The three men sighed in unison, and resumed their silent vigil.

"But sir—"

"But nothing, Detective," Gates said, clasping her hands on top of her desk and fixing Beckett with a piercing glare. "This decision is final."

"But you can't just expect me to–!"

"I expect you to follow orders, as long as you're working here," Gates interrupted, and Beckett rolled her eyes.

There was a moment of silence before she spoke again. "I'm not going to talk you out of this, am I?"

"No, you're not," Gates said, in a more even voice. "Kate, you have sixty-eight days of paid vacation time accumulated, and there are already two detectives in this precinct who are off work with stress-related illness. The commissioner's memo was very clear."

Beckett sighed and folded her arms. "But I feel fine!"

"Clearly," Gates said with a note of sarcasm. "And you're going to feel even more fine after you take a mandatory two-week vacation, starting tomorrow."

"But–"

"Do I make myself clear, Detective?"

Beckett's eyes blazed defiantly, but she knew when she was beaten. "Crystal clear, sir," she replied tightly.

"Then enjoy your vacation, and we'll see you in a couple of weeks," Gates said with a forced smile, and pointed to the door of her office. "And I want that paperwork for the Hamilton case before you go."

Beckett muttered something that Gates couldn't quite make out, then got up and stomped out of the office.

"She's coming out!" Castle said, and Esposito immediately swivelled round in his chair and started typing on his computer.

Ryan grabbed his desk phone's handset and launched into an entirely imaginary conversation about financial records, and Castle just stood there, looking to his left and then his right, and finally grabbing a piece of paper frantically from Ryan's desk and pretending to study it intently.

Beckett took three steps out of Gates's office then folded her arms and glared at them, with a thunderous look on her face.

"Catching up on your reading, Castle?" she asked, and he gulped.

"I'm, uh, yeah. I'm just helping Ryan with his… uh…"

He actually looked at the document for the first time, and his heart sank when he realised that not only was it a booklet of paint colour samples that Jenny had left there for her husband three days before, but that it was also upside down.

"…paint," he finished lamely, shooting a death glare at Ryan, who winced apologetically.

Beckett huffed, her eyes blazing, then stormed off to her desk.

"That didn't seem good," Ryan said, keeping his voice quiet.

"No," Castle replied, watching her sit down at her desk and start striking keys on her keyboard furiously.

"So… are you gonna go talk to her?"

"What? Oh, yeah. I think I'll make her some coffee first, though. Just leave her be for now."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Ryan said, swivelling his chair around with one last cautious glance over towards Beckett.

Less than five minutes later, Castle carefully carried two coffees from the break room and approached Beckett's desk. He paused when he reached the visitor's chair that he thought of as his, and she glanced up at him. Her expression softened slightly when she saw the coffees, and she gestured vaguely towards the chair.

He sat down, and handed her a cup. She took it without saying anything, and immediately took a sip.

"I'm sorry," he said, and she glanced at him, looking puzzled.

"For?"

"For the thing with Gates," he said. "She wants to kick me out, doesn't she?"

She peered at him for several seconds, and then shook her head in irritation. "Of course you would think it's about you."

His eyebrows shot up. "It's not about me?"

She huffed again and then shook her head, and he grinned.

"Great!" he said, then the smile froze on his face as she glared at him. He coughed, and looked down at his coffee. "Not great, I mean," he said. "Obviously it was bad."

She felt a grin pulling at the corner of her mouth despite the anger and tension that had been filling her for the last twenty minutes or so, and she forced herself not to show it.

Trust you to almost make me laugh at a time like this, she thought. She pushed the thought away, then sighed in exasperation.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked, looking up at her again, and she thwacked the Return key on her keyboard hard enough to make a loud CLACK that seemed to echo around the bullpen.

Castle winced. "Or we could not talk about it," he said, taking a careful sip of his coffee.

Suddenly, Beckett swivelled around in her chair to face him, and folded her arms again. "Vacation time!" she spat.

Castle blinked twice.

Beckett huffed again, rolling her eyes.

"Uh… yeah," Castle said, slowly. "If you're stressed or whatever, you could totally take a vacation. Get away from Gates for a little while. I think it could be good for you."

He had a tentative, appeasing smile on his face, unsure whether he was saying the right thing. There was a single beat of silence before she unfolded her arms and clenched her fists instead.

"I don't want to take a vacation!" she shouted, drawing glances from Esposito and Ryan, and a couple of other passing officers.

Castle blinked again. A swing and a miss, he thought, frowning.

"Hey, it was just a suggestion," he said. "Forget I said anything. You don't have to take a vacation if you don't want to."

"Ugh!" Beckett cried, slamming her fist down onto the desk, and Castle flinched.

She took several deep breaths, then met his gaze again. He looked confused and worried, and was holding his coffee cup at mid-chest level, like a shield.

"I do have to take a vacation," she hissed. "That's what Gates said. Two weeks, starting tomorrow. It's a load of crap!"

Castle blinked again, his frown disappearing. Then the barest grin slowly appeared on his face.

"Castle," she said warningly, but he just put his coffee down and sprang up from his chair.

"Back in two minutes," he said in an excited tone, and hurried off.

Beckett watched him disappear around the corner, then set her coffee down beside his.

"Or I could just go to jail for shooting you," she muttered, then she buried her face in her hands.

"OK, it's all arranged," Castle said triumphantly, bounding up to her desk and dropping into his chair with a bump.

"Go away," she replied, her voice muffled by her hands.

"Don't you want to know what I mean?" he teased, picking up his coffee and taking a large swig of the dark liquid, then sighing in appreciation.

"I have a gun," she said, still not looking up.

"And I," he replied, drawing out the syllable for several seconds, "have a proposal for you."

"That's a coincidence," she muttered, and he pouted at the top of her head for a moment.

After another few seconds, she sighed heavily and lifted her head out of her hands. "Fine," she said. "On top of everything else that's screwing up my day, do tell."

Castle quickly set his coffee cup down again and cleared his throat. His eyes were sparkling with excitement, and again she had to forcibly conceal her instinctive grin at his boyishness.

"Imagine, if you will," he began, moving his hand in a waving motion through the air as he looked off into the middle distance, "a beachfront paradise. Sun, sand, a pool, blue skies, clear water, jet skis, boats, barbecues, and the most charming and ruggedly handsome companion you could ever hope for. And all only 90 minutes away from the city!"

Her eyebrows shot up. He can't be serious.

"Home-cooked meals, total relaxation, and door-to-door transport there and back," he continued. "All for the low, low price of zero dollars and zero cents. It's an opportunity too good to miss!"

She folded her arms again, taking a calming breath. Her pulse rate had risen slightly. He flirted with her regularly, and she rebuffed him each time, but this was something entirely different.

I never thought he'd ask me again, she thought. After the fiasco with Gina and the long Summer without him the year before, she had often wondered what it would have been like if she had said yes before his ex-wife had elbowed her way back into his life.

But it's totally inappropriate, she thought. What's he going to expect if I said yes to a vacation with him in his house in the Hamptons? At least last time Alexis was going to be there too.

She tuned back into what he was saying, and picked up something about him not being able to guarantee the weather, of course, but it was usually pretty good.

"Castle, I can't go to your beach house with you," she said, keeping her voice quiet.

"But it'd be great!" he said earnestly, and she allowed herself to grin slightly. "And it's not like you're allowed to be at work for the next couple of weeks anyway. We'd have an amazing time! Just the three of us."

Three? she thought, feeling tension rise in her chest. What the hell has he got in mind?

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "And who else is going? Not that I'm going."

He frowned. "Weren't you listening? Like I said, Alexis has term break coming up, and we weren't going to go away because I'd be working with you. But now you're not working, so we can go away, just the three of us."

Huh, she thought. That… probably changes things. Doesn't it? But–

"What about Martha?" She finished the thought out loud, but Castle just waved his hand dismissively.

"She's running her acting school; she's booked up for weeks. I couldn't drag her out of the city."

"Castle, I can't go on vacation with you and your daughter," she said, and she was unsettled to hear the note of doubt in her voice.

He sighed. "Can't, or won't?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but he interrupted her.

"Look, just think about it, OK? Alexis deserves a vacation, and so do you. The house is sitting there empty, just waiting. It won't cost you a dime, and you're on forced leave from tomorrow anyway. We can be back in the city in under two hours if we need to. It just makes sense."

She had to admit that he had a point.

This is a disaster waiting to happen, her mind cautioned her, but then she glanced at her pile of paperwork and then over towards Gates's office, and she grimaced.

She took another sip of her coffee, and then ventured another look at Castle. He was still watching her, with probably the same expression that he'd worn when he was a child, and was just about to open his presents on Christmas morning.

A warm feeling chased through her. You are a ridiculous and incredibly annoying human being, she thought, but she was already grudgingly smiling.

"I'd be insane to say yes to this," she said.

He just tilted his head, as if to say Maybe.

"You're… you. And I'd probably shoot you before the end of the second day."

He smirked.

"People would talk," she said, feeling a slight flush rise in her cheeks.

He raised an eyebrow. People already talk. Who cares?

"And there would be absolutely nothing for them to talk about. Because I will have my gun. And my own bedroom. With a lock."

He nodded earnestly.

"This is a terrible and crazy idea," she said.

He shrugged, grinning even more widely.

"But Alexis does deserve a proper vacation," she continued. "And I don't have any choice about taking time off, so I might as well not sit around my apartment for two weeks."

He tilted his head and pointed towards her. Exactly.

"We would be just two… colleagues, on vacation. At the same place. There's nothing wrong with that."

He shook his head vigorously.

"And absolutely nothing is going to happen. This is strictly about convenience. And Alexis."

He gave a thumbs-up.

She sighed, and gave him a narrow-eyed glare for several seconds before speaking again.

"Well I'm glad we had this talk," she said, folding her arms again.

He turned his head slightly to one side, raising an eyebrow. So…?

She sighed again. I must be crazy, she thought, studiously ignoring the butterflies in her stomach.

"Oh fine, then," she said at last, and he sprang up from his seat, punching the air.

Esposito and Ryan looked over with identical questions on their faces.

"We're going on vacation!" Castle shouted, and the other two men slowly turned their heads to look at each other.

"Oh god," Beckett muttered, then buried her face in her hands.