Something to Apologise About

Author's Note: so I haven't written anything in almost nine months. Let's call that the curse of a full-time job and a Masters dissertation. One of those is now over – and this is the result of all the free time that handing in a 16,000 word dissertation suddenly provides. This is an alternate ending to 1x09 – it's one of my favourite early episodes, and when I happened to catch the episode the other day, it just hit me. As always – not mine, I don't own them, I just love watching them. Enjoy!

Her heart feels like it's about to beat right out of her chest. This is normally the point in a case when she starts to unwind. When the adrenaline starts to recede because it's over.

Done.

They've caught the killer.

Or, in this case, the kidnapper. And this time they've caught her with the best possible outcome, a beautiful little girl safe at home with her daddy as night falls across the city.

She absolutely won't admit to why that particular thought makes her already stumbling heart skip a beat. Certainly won't admit that she's not actually thinking of Angela Candela, but of years gone past and a tiny, red-headed-

Nope. Not thinking it.

"So, how do you think she'll do?"

Will Sorenson seats himself in the chair next to her desk as he poses his question. In his chair, her traitorous heart points out, like it's his own. Not someone else's. He's got that look in his eyes that used to make her think she felt weak at the knees, although in the last few weeks she's started to wonder whether she ever really knew what feeling weak at the knees felt like, before.

"Depends how many mothers are on the jury," she manages to murmur in response, barely hearing herself over the roar in her own head.

Will Sorenson. Her ex. Her ex-boyfriend who kissed her. In the middle of a case. A kiss she can't figure out how to rationalise feeling such ridiculous, all-consuming guilt over.

It's not like they're dating. She didn't lie, when he asked if they were together.

They're absolutely not dating.

"So, now that it's over," Will continues, snapping her attention back to him, "now that I'm back, I was thinking… maybe, we could give it another shot."

There was a time she thought those words would have her jumping back into his arms. Metaphorically speaking, because she's not sure she ever jumped into his arms.

She's also pretty sure he's not the one whose arms she would jump into, anymore.

"And when you leave again?" she asks almost automatically, even as she tries to make sense of that thought.

"You come with me," he tells her, like it's the simplest thing in the world.

Like he said every time they argued, all that time ago.

It's what broke them up. And as she studies him quietly, she knows that it's the issue that would, ultimately, break them up again.

But, as she looks away, she knows it's not the real reason she's avoiding giving him an answer.

"Think about it," he tells her seriously when she doesn't respond, and she finds she can't do anything but nod as his fingers fleetingly squeeze her shoulder and he walks away.

Again.

It feels like she barely has a second to breathe before he's there. Taking the seat that's rightfully his.

"Nice guy," he offers, without a hint of anger or accusation. "I can see how it wouldn't work, though."

When she looks over, his face is softer than she expects. More knowing.

"Rick," she whispers under her breath, stumbling a little over his name. The one that she rarely uses. His eyes flash warmly as he orients himself toward her, leaning in imperceptibly to rest his elbows on his knees as her heart starts to beat out an irregular rhythm in her chest.

"Handsome, square-jawed, by-the-book, he's like the male you," he continues, a smile slowly taking over his face. "Ying needs Yang, not another Ying. Ying-Yang is harmony. Ying-Ying is... a name for a panda."

She laughs.

She can't help it.

"Any more wisdom, Obi-Wan?" she asks, biting her lip to keep back the smile that wants to break free as he preens a little at the nickname.

"Nope, that's it for today," he tells her, his gaze steady and patient as she drops hers back to her paperwork. "Kate," he murmurs softly, dropping the volume even as he ratchets the intimacy of their conversation way up and her heart thumps into overdrive.

"I'm sorry," she whispers impulsively, lifting her eyes from her paperwork, "about the kiss."

Because they're not dating.

Except, they kind of are. If you count two quiet, wonderful, intimate dinners, one of which she actually wore a dress for, as dating. If you count her actually opening up to him, and learning that he's kind and gentle and charming and so, so much more than the man on page six, as dating.

And, if you count one chaste, butterfly-inducing goodnight kiss as he flagged down a cab for her after their second dinner, as dating.

They're totally dating.

"What do you have to be sorry for?" he asks softly, his pinky finger brushing subtly against her left knee where it knocks against her desk.

"You, I… we," she stumbles, flicking her eyes away as embarrassment threatens to flood her cheeks.

"We've had dinner twice, Kate," he murmurs softly, and her heart starts pounding all over again because this, this is the softer, gentler side to him that convinced her to finally say yes when he asked if he could buy her dinner.

This is the side to him that she saw three weeks ago, when his daughter turned up unexpectedly at the precinct the night after her mother left with a sadness in her eyes that, it seemed, could only be eased by her father.

"And yes, I'd like to take you out again, and again… and maybe again," he grins softly, and she can feel the blush completely spreading over her cheeks at the thought of maybe again. "But two dates doesn't automatically mean we're exclusive, Kate. I'd like us to be, very much," he adds, "but that alone doesn't give me the right to be angry because your ex kissed you, or to hold it against you, particularly not with this case."

"I'd like us to be, too," is all she can find to say, but oh if his face doesn't light up at only that.

"In which case," he tells her around his smile, "if you were to kiss your ex-boyfriend tomorrow, you might have something to apologise about."

"Noted," she whispers with what she's sure is her own silly grin.

Because she's pretty sure that they're definitely dating now.

"And now that we've got that sorted," he continues, and she's not sure she's ever really thought of a man as cute before, but he's the absolute definition of it right now, and wow is she more gone than she thought. "Seeing as mother has taken Alexis to the opening night of what she swears is the hottest new Broadway show around, could I talk you into dinner number three at the loft?" he asks, letting his fingers curl around her knee, warm and heavy.

She should have to think about it. She really should.

Except she doesn't.

"You could," she murmurs softly, touching the tips of her fingers to his knuckles where they rest on her knee. Because he already has talked her into it, if she's perfectly honest.

And he must know it.

"I'll get right on that, then," he murmurs, with a grin that tells her exactly that.

And, honestly?

After the day – after the week – she's had, she can't think of anything she would rather do than go home with him.

And if there's any chance that the dinner she's pretty sure will be incredible will end with her getting to curl up the couch she's pretty sure she has dreams about, then she'll be happy.

If it's curling up with him?

She thinks she can finally acknowledge that that would be all the better.

"Yo, Becks," Esposito's drawl startles her out of her fantasy as he saunters back into the bullpen with Ryan. She draws her hand sharply back into her lap, as Castle relaxes back into his chair. "Now the feebs are out of our hair, you want to celebrate with a beer?"

"I can't, boys," she answers, her eyes flicking briefly over to Castle's.

She shouldn't. But…

"I've got a date," she adds, revelling in an extended a moment to enjoy the eyes of all three men widen comically, albeit for entirely different reasons.

"A date?" It's Castle who picks up his jaw first, a soft, knowing look in his eyes as he continues, "you date? Who?"

He's all but grinning at her by this point, and the way it makes her feel makes her make a split second decision.

Before she's even really had a chance to process it, she finds herself picking up her paperwork and flicking off her monitor before swinging her messenger bag over her shoulder.

She can see the energy all but bouncing off Castle, and she reaches up to tuck her hair behind her ear as she considers her response.

"That is why it's called a private life," she tells him, biting her lip as she hopes he picks up on the warmth in her eyes that belies the sarcasm in her voice, "because it's private. Unlike you, I don't live my life on Page Six."

She intends it as a cheap shot.

She's pretty sure even he knows she's starting not to believe that anymore.

But there's also a part of her that's so very private, and this is so new and so special that she's not ready to share it. And even as she's thinking that, almost as if he's reading her mind, there's a flash of warmth in his eyes and the subtlest of nods that reminds her yet again that the man standing in front of her is not the man that he so often pretends to be.

He's so much more.

"Well, you're a mysterious woman, Detective Beckett," he murmurs, eyes locked on hers.

And honestly? She can only think of one response.

"Well maybe there's a little more Nikki Heat in me than you think."

fin.