When cops had arrived to pick up the letters from his home, Castle had felt a moment of guilt as he pointed towards the boxes of unopened letters stacked in the corner of his office.

It wasn't that he didn't appreciate his fans writing to him, but he had since discovered that many of the packages often contained questionable items such as undergarments, explicit photos, and of course the ever popular phone numbers.

He supposed it came with the territory of being a ruggedly handsome mystery writer.

It was because of this that Castle had stopped responding to his fan letters. Not that he didn't appreciate the photos, but having his daughter find them in his office was an entirely different matter altogether and it was a scene he was rather eager to avoid if at all possible.

Despite having served him well over the course of the last few years, it meant that there were literally decades worth of letters to sort through, many of which stated the same thing over and over again. About how they loved the book that had come out that year, how they were dying to meet him, how they'd be more than happy to show him a good time if he wanted to give them a call… standard things like that.

He didn't mind so much, but glancing across the table at Beckett's carefully blank expression had him cracking a smile. He could only imagine what was going on within that mind of hers, what she must be thinking about him now.

Tossing the latest letter aside towards the pile of perfectly innocent (or rather as innocent as they could get) letters, Castle reached blindly for yet another letter. Slicing the envelope open, he fished out the letter before beginning to read.

His eyes skimming the contents of the letter, he couldn't help but smile at the gushing contents of the perfectly pg letter. But it wasn't until he reached the signature that he did a double take, reaching for the envelope and flipping it around to double check.

There was no way.

Kate Beckett was printed in a neat script across the top lefthand corner of the envelope, her address below. His index finger slowly folding down the top of the letter, he glanced across the table at the detective.

It took Beckett a mere few seconds to realize she was being ogled. The dirty look she threw at Castle was enough to have him flip the top of the letter back up, hiding his eyes from her as she frowned briefly before returning to the task at hand.

The second time he wasn't so lucky.

"What." she bit out, glaring daggers at the writer sitting across the table from her.

"Nothing." he started, dropping the pretense of reading the letter altogether. "It's just that, umm, you're a fan." he finally responded, unable to resist the cheeky grin that spread across his face.

"I thought we had already gone over this, I am not a fan."

"Well, I have a letter here that proves otherwise."

Proceeding to twist his wrist in a way that would allow her to read the contents of the letter, Castle's grin only spread as he watched the blood drain from her face.

"Give me that," she growled, as she made an attempt to snatch the letter from his hands.

"Not so fast," he quipped as his hand moved just enough that her hand came up short. "Let me see… Mr Castle, I just wanted to write to you to let you know what a huge fan I am of your books…"

"Castle…"

"They're among my favourite series of all times, and I have read them all multiple times…."

"I'm going to kill you, I swear."

"…And I can't begin to say how instrumental they were in helping me get over my mother's death." The last sentence caught in his throat, the grin slipping of his face as he glanced aghast at the letter in his hands. He hadn't expected… well.

Glancing back up across the table, a wave of regret hit him as he saw that she was refusing to meet his eyes. Her jaw tightened as she swallowed hard, leaving Castle to glance back down at the letter in his hands.

Slowly folding the letter back along the original creases, Castle reached towards the now empty envelope before tucking it in with his nimble fingers. Sliding the envelope across the table towards Beckett as his eyes sought to meet hers, his stomach plummeted further when she looked with eyes that were far brighter than normal.

"I'm… I'm sorry." Castle offered, hating himself for his weak apology but not knowing what else he could do.

But Beckett seemed eager to put it behind her, accepting his apology with a brusque "It's fine, Castle." Picking up the letter from where it had been left on the desk, she slipped the envelope into the pocket of her blazer before continuing. "Let's just finish reading these, I don't want to be here all night."

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Tumblr Prompt: 1x01. Castle finds a letter from "Kate Beckett" when he and Beckett are going through his mail.