Let's Start at the Very Beginning

Disclaimer: I still don't own it, and they're way more evil than me

AN: This one has not been betaed. My trusty Beta is feeling under the weather, so I decided this could be her get well soon present! Please excuse any errors they are mine, and mine alone.

For CB, hope it makes you smile. Feel better soon!

He'd asked her to dinner after the case. She surprised him when she said yes.

She was softer than he would have thought. That's what crossed his mind as he watched the dark haired detective drift off in the aftermath of what he had to admit was an even better night than he'd expected. And he didn't just mean the sex, although that had been pretty damn mind blowing too.

Kate Beckett was fun. He'd insisted on taking her to dinner first, waited in the chair by her desk while she got Tisdale safely booked and documented for the murder of his sister. She'd given him a dubious look at the suggestion, but then offered up Remy's, a little burger joint a short walk from the precinct.

They'd ordered burgers and split a plate of fries, and when he was adamant that they get shakes as well, she had ordered a stawberry one with the relish of a little kid. She'd snatched at the last of the fries with a triumph in her eyes like she'd had over those evidence photos in the interrogation room that first night, and he was once again caught by the idea that there was something about her he couldn't quite make out. Something that had set his skin tingling and blood singing since she'd pulled her badge on him and unknowingly rescued him from the deathly dull boredom of his launch party.

But what was killing him now was her softness. Her skin, her breath at his ear, something in her eyes. He couldn't think about those gorgeous eyes of hers without seeing the harsh wash of grief he'd unwittingly put there when he'd been trying to sketch her character, just to prove he could. He still didn't know how to make that right, and it gnawed at him.

He carefully extricated himself from the bed to use her bathroom, and it was when he was coming back, rooting through the jumbled mess of her clothes and his, that he found it, glittering from the end of a long chain.

"What the hell is this?" The words were pouring from him before he had even realized he'd opened his mouth.

She jerked awake at the sound of his voice uttering a string of curses, and opened her eyes to find Richard Castle standing over her bed. A very angry Richard Castle.

"What the hell, Castle?" She asked, parroting him back with an irritated huff. If he was going to play this up like some kind of drunken playboy mistake, she wasn't having any of it. The wildest thing he'd had to drink in her company was a chocolate malt, and heaven knew he hadn't left her sight in at least eight hours.

"You tell me," he practically snarled back. "Did you just convienently forget to tell me that you were married? What, your husband is on a business trip, and you just decided to have a little fun?"

"Have you lost your mind? What are you even -" then she saw chain dangling from his fingers.

"Give me that," she said with a growl in her voice. "How dare you?" She snatched at the ring, curling her fingers around it and drawing it protectively close to her chest.

"How dare I? Listen, detective," the last word dripped off his tongue with a clearly palpable contempt. "I have a pretty damn good idea of what you think of me, but don't think you know me, either."

The echo of her earlier words made her eyes snap to his, but she stared in frozen silence, unable to speak.

"I know my reputation okay? And yeah, I like a good time, sure. But I am not this guy."

He turned his back on her then, started gathering his clothing from the floor again. She was holding the ring in her fingers hard enough to bruise, but all she could think about was the way his voice had cracked on the end of his last words.

"It's not - I'm not married. It was my mother's ring," she forced the words out, grief making them thick and raw in the air between them. "She died when I was nineteen. She was murdered, stabbed to death. It's her ring." She didn't bother telling him the bastard was never caught. It wasn't like he didn't know, wasn't like he hadn't guessed.

There was a heavy silence, and neither moved.

"Jesus, Kate," her given on his lips made her tremble with memories barely an hour old. "I -"

"I think you should go," she said, her eyes never meeting his. This had been the worst kind of mistake. What had she done? What had she been thinking, saying yes to him, sleeping with him?

Shit. She wouldn't look him in the eye, but his mind saw it anyway. The same dark well of grief that had filled them earlier came vividly to his mind's eye. Twice, he'd done this to her twice now. Invaded her private pain and broken her with something he hadn't even known exsited.

He felt like such an ass for making that kind of an assumption. But he'd seen the ring and just - lost it. There was no good excuse, he knew that. It was only that he was...a little raw. The ink had barely dried on his second divorce, and it hadn't been like the first time, Gina was faithful, at least, but it still twisted his guts with a sense of failure.

He realized with a shock of sudden awareness that he was standing half naked in her bedroom. And she'd asked him to leave. He turned to gather the rest of his clothes from the floor. But the guilt wouldn't leave him. He'd unknowingly forced a story from her, one that had caused her such pain. And he'd accused her of infidelity in the processs. He wanted, somehow, to do what he could to make it right. He felt like he owed it to her. Owed her his own story.

"It was my wife. My first wife," he said quietly, his back still to the spot where she sat on the bed.

"What?"

He turned back, found that her eyes were finally on him. "My first wife, Meredith. Our daughter, Alexis was three, and I'd dropped her off at a play date. I'd planned on staying, but I had an idea, suddenly, for a story, and so I went home to write. She was naked on the couch with the director from her latest project. My wife."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. He never talked about her, about Meredith. Ever. Not like this. But - that broken, haunted look in Kate Beckett's eyes had wrecked him. And he'd been the one to put it there. Twice. So, he'd told her. A story for a story, a truth for a terrible truth. Fair trade, right? Well, maybe not. He couldn't fathom her loss, not really. And she'd been so young, then. barely much older than his kid was now. But still, he'd shared his story, one of his deepest secrets, and so, here they were.

"God Castle," her voice was soft, and closer than he had anticipated. He opened his eyes – though he hadn't realized he'd closed them until that moment – to find her standing right in front of him, the chain around her neck, now. She reached for his hand, and he let her take it. "I'm...sorry," she murmured.

He stared down into her incedible eyes, glad at least to see that some of the darkness had lifted. "Me too," he said roughly. But this time when he kissed her, when he guided her back to her bed, it was a softer thing than it had been before.

When he left in the early morning, she was on her way to another body drop, and he had to get home to have breakfast with his daughter. But he couldn't get her out of his mind. She was...something. Different. Strong. Challenging. Fun. She was still the puzzle he couldn't quite solve.

He started writing out a story about a sassy female cop and an irritating tagalong writer without really meaning to. But it poured from his fingers, flowing more easily onto the page of his laptop screen than it had any right to, felt like more fun than anything had felt in such a very, very long time.

He called the Mayor when he had finally stopped the flow of words for the time being, around two that afternoon. Because he couldn't figure her out, and he couldn't get her out of his head. He told the mayor it was for research. He told himself it was just about the book. But it felt like a lie.

She spent the whole day fending off teasing about her favorite author, first from the boys, then from Lanie. She made a conscious effort to meet their eyes as she played off their ribbing, not wanting to look ill at ease. Not wanting to give herself away.

She didn't regret it. Not in the end. It had been an experience unlike anything she had anticipated. She had teased him in the beginning, told him he had no idea. But, she hadn't either.

It had been good, and fun, the first time. A release and a thrill. Because, seriously? Handsome, irritating, childish Richard Castle had some very talented hands. And she could just imagine those long, capable fingers working away at a keyboard, churning out the words to some of her favorite novels.

But it was the second time that she couldn't stop thinking about. It ran on a constant, silent replay in the back of her mind, even as she ran down leads on her newest case. It had been so very unexpected. Slow, thorough, and gentle. And that both soothed and unnerved her. Because she hadn't felt so good in a very long time.

She felt like she should have been hollowed out. Raw. Because she'd shared some of her most personal parts of her past with him, something she almost never did. And it hadn't been under the most willing of circumstances, either.

But, he'd done the same, and maybe that was what made the whole thing so hard to shake from her mind. He'd said there was always a story, and then he'd proven it, more than once. And he'd surprised her, too. More than once.

Heaven knew, his irritating persistence had probably saved Kyle Cabot from prison. Just as his captivating words had once saved Kate Beckett from the prison of her own grief. She was greatful for both things.

It was just after four in the afternoon when Montgomery called her into his office and explained that Richard Castle intended to base his next book on her. Wanted to follow her around on cases for an indeterminate period of time. For research, he claimed. She tried to beg off, tried to think of something other than Castle's hands on her skin, and then, his fingers on the keyboard, writing stories about her. Montgomery was having none of it. Neither was her brain.

When she turned to find him staring back at her from the Captain's doorway, he looked for all the world like the smug, self satisfied, man child and would-be playboy she'd met a few days before.

But her eyes saw more in his. Saw the pain of truths he'd rather not have shared. She knew the feeling. She saw too, someone who could look in her eyes and see her own pain. Normally, she hated that. But with Castle, it felt different. Like understanding. It made her feel lighter somehow.

She told Montgomery she didn't need him following her around. She told the boys she didn't want his antics complicating her day. She told herself that the second time they'd been together had been about compassion, not a connection. But it felt like a lie.

He asked her to dinner again after their second case. She surprised them both when she said yes.