Disclaimer: Not mine, especially the dialogue near the start. Characters are the property of AWM & ABC.

A/N: Just like 'The Talk', we have the queen of prompts, BlueOrchid96, to thank for this story too.

The concept is this: what if the crime scene that Kate & Castle visited in the alley at the beginning of 'Always' had nothing to do with Kate's mom's case or her own shooting, and the movie marathon that Castle invited her to after Alexis' graduation therefore went ahead. Would Kate go to the loft? And, if she did show up, what then…?

"If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting..."

'If' - Rudyard Kipling

What If...?

It's foggy. Foggy and damp, and it swirls around them as they walk towards the crime scene, coffee cups in hand.

She met him on the corner, tugging her navy raincoat around her as he approached from a cab with the evidence of their requisite morning caffeine ritual in hand, glad of the warmth from the blue turtleneck sweater she threw on this morning, her grey dress pants catching the chill eddy and whip of the breeze as they head down the alley to face whatever awaits them this time.

She feels lighter since they talked a couple of nights ago at the precinct, hard on the heels of closing the crazy zombie case. Admitting she was seeing a therapist was a big step for her, the hard work finally paying off. Making him understand, trying to ensure it didn't hurt him that she had kept this from him too, it's easier now, doesn't irritate her so much; this need he has to know everything, to poke his nose around her business like a bloodhound, to own parts of her life she's not even sure that she owns anymore.

And so things seem better between them, after she told him that her wall is coming down. And the look on his face when she agreed that, yes, she'd like him to be there when it does – it felt like gossamer threads slowly winding around her heart and then tugging, tugging ever so gently. The hope in his eyes, the things it does to her to see him so pleased, with her…

Gone was the surly act of indifference, or worse, the passive aggression towards her that he'd paired up with a careless disregard for his own wellbeing; as if this was the only way he could see fit to punish her – by hurting himself, running around the streets of New York with Slaughter - maybe to test her, find out if she cared, maybe to make her feel a little of how he felt when she was shot and then abandoned him to heal alone.

She's not sure why he turned away from them, she's only certain that she is so glad he's back, and she wants to maintain that hopeful look on his face, give it validation eventually. She's getting closer. Her heart feels playful, lighter, almost ready.

Good enough.

And so this morning, as soon as she got the call from Dispatch, she found herself eager to call him, to invite him to the scene with her just to check that they're as close again as she hopes they are, that it wasn't an aberration fuelled by relief at successfully closing another case together.

She let warmth leak into her voice as she gently woke him with her phone call. No clipped request that he attend, no sarcastic bite, just an offer that he accompany her if he wanted to, her hope that he'd say yes not hidden away this time, clearly evident in the warm honeyed appeal of her tone, the 'great, see you there' as she hung up, and the 'oh, and Castle. Don't forget my coffee' tease right at the last gasp.

And so they find themselves in a dirty alley, just three days before Alexis' graduation, attending the scene of another, as yet, unexplained homicide.

"Of course you don't understand why she's taking her graduation speech so seriously. You're probably the guy who had nothing on but boxers underneath his gown," says Kate boldly, smiling with coy amusement as she teases him.

"That is so insulting. If you must know, I was naked underneath," replies Castle, matching her tease with a bold rebuttal of his own that flirts with that familiar line they used to walk, before their recent estrangement.

And it feels so good to be back here again! Home territory. Somewhere she might be ready to move into permanently, instead of always leaving a go-bag packed by the front door.

"Oh, I'm sorry," scoffs Kate, trying to cover her surprise at his admission. "I stand corrected," she chuckles, risking a glance at him, her cheeks flushing at the stirring of need his disclosure causes in her, the vivid images that come to mind; images she's spent many a long hour both denying herself and teasing herself with.

Castle grins, so pleased with himself, and so pleased that Kate isn't running from this little game they're playing. That she isn't shutting him down, more giving as good as she gets.

"So, how is the father of the graduate taking it?" she asks, trying to calm the thudding of her heart.

"I already have a plan to drown my sorrows. After the ceremony, my mother goes out to the Hamptons, Alexis will be doing her all-nighter, I will be distracting myself with a double feature of The Killer and Hard Boiled."

"Wow, that is a double feature," agrees Kate, showing her approval of his movie selection.

"You like John Woo?" asks Castle, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.

"The bloodier the better," grins Kate, pleased that she can still surprise him; prove that there are many more layers to the Beckett onion, even after all this time.

Castle pauses, considering whether or not to ask. Their recent difficulties tell him no, it's too big of a risk. But the look on her face…

"You wouldn't want to join me, would you?"

Kate smiles with undisguised pleasure, lowering her lashes in what he knows, he knows to be a flirtatious gesture. Then she gives him the once-over, as if she's checking him out! Before she replies.

"Actually, I'd love to."

Castle stops dead, raises his eyebrows as he watches his partner continue walking towards the crime scene, stunned by her agreement to spend time alone with him, in his home, watching movies after his little girl graduates. Keeping him company, as if they're…

Kate stops, and turns to look back at him when he doesn't follow. She knows that she has surprised him by accepting his invitation, and it thrills her to be able to give this to him.

"You coming, Castle?" she asks, throwing him her warmest smile and a come-hither look that is unmistakable, accompanied by a slight, encouraging jerk of her head.

"Yeah," he says breathlessly, hurrying to catch up with her, excitement at what this might mean for them fizzing through his body

The case looks pretty clear-cut: a known drug dealer – Skelton Drake - found with his throat slit and his pockets emptied in the entrance to an abandoned nightclub at the scrag end of the alley, half a key of powdery, off-white cocaine dusted around him like confectioner's sugar, congealing on the damp, fetid ground.

Ryan and Esposito canvas for witnesses, but the area is so derelict and deserted that unless the rats can talk they're getting nothing that way.

Kate runs down some leads via her contact in Narcotics. She gets details of known associates, potential suppliers, rival dealers he might have been fighting a turf war with, a list of anyone he owed money to, his aliases, customers he might have pissed off with inferior quality gear, last known address…the whole sordid picture.

It takes them hours to run down and interview the list of known associates alone, and as the second day draws to a close with no resolution, Kate sends Castle home to get some rest before Alexis' graduation the following day.

"Hey…uh…Beckett? We still on for that John Woo marathon tomorrow night?" he asks as he shrugs on his coat, eyes full of so much hope that she knows he's trying and failing to hide from her. "Because if you've changed your mind…"

"No. No, Castle. I do. I want to. It's just, I…it's not that. The case…" she says vaguely, helplessly, looking around her at the team and the piles of files on her desk, the stack of recent Narco DD5's to plow through, the uncompleted murder board with Skelton Drake's old mug shot staring down at them accusingly.

"I understand," he says quickly, eyes shuttering, shaking his head and backing off, hands held up as if to protect himself. "You've got a lot on your plate."

And his understanding is almost more than she can bear. She wants him to expect more from her now; to push, make demands.

"Look, if I can shut this thing down…" she starts to say, but he's already backing away.

"Sure. Look, I should go," he says, pointing towards the elevator, the air thick with everything that goes unsaid – the promises, the regrets, his dashed hopes.

As soon as the doors close and Castle's disappointed face disappears from view, Kate turns back to her team to find Ryan and Esposito watching her with interest over the top of their computer screens.

"Where are we on Drake's girlfriend, Cerise?" she snaps, looking pointedly from one detective to the other.

"Got a possible address for her sister in East Harlem," replies Ryan, eyes ducking back to his notes.

"Well, let's move on it," instructs Kate. "We should be wrapping this thing up by now, not turning it into some epic production."

"Yes, boss," they both bark, throwing each other knowing looks.

Castle doesn't come in the following day, simply texts to say he's spending time with Alexis before the ceremony, and he hopes that 'they' – the team - catch a break soon.

Kate sighs, staring at her phone, so tempted to call him and explain. But explain what? That she hates that her job always has to come first? That he wasn't wrong when he thought that she meant something more by agreeing to a movie night with him? That it's time?

She checks her watch every half-hour, watching the day speed away, measured out in a rhythm of phone calls and interviews; grunt work checking alibis and questioning a seemingly endless parade of shifty, underfed, hygienically challenged, tattooed misfits.

The breakthrough finally comes at a quarter to eight, in the form of a call from Lanie. CSU managed to pull DNA off the discarded cocaine wrapper, as well as matching the drug's chemical signature to a major supplier profile on the Organized Crimes database.

They get a hit on the DNA sample in CODIS and discover that, for once, the guy they want is already languishing in holding on a possession with intent to supply charge from the day before, when Ryan and Esposito picked him up driving a blacked-out SVU over on Amsterdam Avenue, just north of 59th Street, with several baggies of weed hidden in a secret compartment under the front passenger seat.

Ryan and Esposito haul him back into interrogation, confront him with the evidence they do have and bluff around a security cam shot they may or may not have of him walking close to the scene around the time of the murder. He caves, asks for a plea in return for giving up the guy at the top of the Christmas tree. The Captain calls the DA's Office and negotiations begin.

Kate throws a guilty glance over her shoulder as she frees her hair from under the collar of her coat.

But the guys give her reassuring smiles and wave her off.

"Go. Enjoy your night, Beckett," reassures Esposito, already lifting the phone to make a call.

"Yeah, rescue Castle from that pit of depression he's surely drowning in, now that Little Castle's all graduated and about to fly the coop."

"Thanks, guys," she says gratefully, watching Gates' pursed lipped, cross-armed stance through her office blinds, as she leans over her desk berating the cocky ADA for not coming across with more right off the bat.

"Call me when you get a deal," she instructs them. "We'll take Cristobal down first thing tomorrow morning, before he even gets a chance to pull his shorts on. And keep Santos segregated tonight. I don't want him warning any of his buddies out on the street before we can get to this guy."

"Yes, boss," they agree simultaneously.

"Now, go," says Espo, shooing her out. "Go rescue our boy."

They hadn't set a time for their movie night (date?). And it's nearly nine-thirty by the time she hits the streets in her dark blue Charger, late enough that traffic is quiet, but…too late to be showing up at her partner's door, she wonders?

Kate thinks about calling him, and then she thinks about all the ways that could go wrong; if he lets her off the hook because of the late hour, if he already watched the movies alone, if he's sacked out on his couch sleeping by now after such a momentous day, if he doesn't even want to see her.

The range of possible permutations makes her feel nauseous. This seemed so easy back in the alley; to accept his offer knowing that they both knew it meant something close to a step forward for them. But the light-hearted, flirtatious edge to the invitation dissolved when she sent him home yesterday with only a half-hearted promise of making it if they managed to break the case, his disappointment swamping what was left of any levity the opportunity held.

The case…they have broken it. That's why she's headed down to SoHo now. Maybe that's the opening she needs…

Kate physically shakes her head the second that thought performs a brief pirouette and takes a bow on the metaphorical stage inside the frontal lobe of her brain.

No.

This is supposed to be a gesture of growth, a demonstration that her wall is crumbling down around them. To use the case as an excuse to call on him, as if all they are is partners…? Cowardly, Beckett, she berates herself, gripping the steeling wheel even tighter, before stepping on the gas.

There's a liquor store open on the corner of Broome and Bowery, and she goes there first. Spends ten minutes chatting to the eccentric owner, tapping her nails impatiently on the counter as the old guy tells her about a wine-buying trip he made to Chianti back in 1973. She leaves the store, almost running to the car, after buying a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pape - Castle's favorite red wine.

Eduardo seems surprised, albeit delighted, to see her, and that hurts in some small way; that even Castle's doorman seems to have such low expectations of them now. He used to wink at her every time she showed up, bowing as he pressed the elevator call button, sending her up to the loft with an 'I'm sure Mr. Castle will be delighted to see you, Miss Beckett.'

Tonight he merely asks if he should ring ahead to alert (warn) Mr. Castle that she's on her way up.

A shiver passes through Kate as she remembers his recent dalliance with the flight attendant, Jacinda. But she tells herself sternly that he is over that phase, that he knows the score. But it doesn't stop her from telling Eduardo to let her surprise him. If there is some woman up there with him, she reasons, then she doesn't want anyone else bearing witness to her humiliation when she has to descend back down to the lobby with her tail between her legs.

And then all too late, and yet all too soon, she's standing in front of his familiar front door, her heart doing an Irish jig worthy of Riverdance.

She switches the tissue-wrapped bottle of wine from her right arm to the left, the fine twist of paper rustling against the sleeve of her red coat. Raising her knuckles, she prepares to knock and tries to breathe.

His footfalls greet her like an approaching army, striking fear and terror, laced with excitement and something that feels suspiciously like arousal, within her.

When the door finally swings open and he's standing there in front of her, blinking in surprise, she thinks her heart might just stop if he doesn't say something soon. It's terrifying, and exhilarating, and...

"Beckett, what…ah…you came," he finally gets out, passing a hand over his mouth and jaw, and she smiles shyly, raising her eyes to meet his, holding forth the wine like a peace offering.

He's wearing his robe - charcoal plush - and his feet and legs are bare from what she can see, and her mind is doing somersaults wondering just what the heck he has on under there, after his comment back in that alley two days ago.

"Said I would, didn't I? So...any John Woo left, or did you give up on me already? Watch it by yourself?" she manages to say, though she has no idea how she does it.

He stands there grinning as Kate brushes past him into the loft, taking off her coat, hanging it up in the closet with shaking fingers, before turning around to face him when she feels her heart can take it.

"So, you planning to lay that stuff down in your cellar or pour me a glass?" she teases, arching a suggestive eyebrow at him, arms crossed over her chest to hold her nervous, hopeful self together.

And with those words, the game is on.

A/N: Happy New Year! Would love to hear what you think of this idea. I loved it as a concept, because the prospect of the John Woo marathon was such a missed opportunity for them. Considering continuing for at least one, possibly two, more chapters. Any thoughts? Liv