Those of you who have been waiting for the end of Another Thing About Mornings will be happy to hear that it's finally going out for beta. Until that's done, there's this.

A quick note about this story – it was written before Knockdown so I'm a little miffed they sent Josh off to Africa, since I was planning to send him off to Senegal with Medecins Sans Frontiers later on (and Jillian Casey can vouch!) But, as there may not be a 'later on', I've decided to post this as is, before any more of it gets jossed. As for those other plans, we'll see how the season plays out, but let's consider it a one-shot for now.

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It hits Kate Beckett in the middle of a charity gala: she's bored.

Not just with the gala itself (no crime to solve, just Josh in a tux and herself in a tight black Vera Wang that's deliberately a little too punk for the occasion). Not just with meeting about a hundred of Josh's friends and co-workers at once (it's a benefit for the pediatric cardiology unit, and he's the guest of honour). No, she's bored of the broad smile Josh receives when he introduces her as his girlfriend, and the way it always freezes when he adds that she's a cop.

It isn't quite the way that other people freeze, as if mentally checking their pockets for dope or wondering whether their parking tickets are all paid up. It's a freeze that says whatever would a pretty girl like you be doing mixed up in an ugly profession like that? A look she knows all too well, having seen it on faces as far back as her English lit professor at NYU (how could you possibly want to waste yourself on the police?) and as recently as the bartender she and Castle interviewed this morning (hey baby, when did the pigs start recruiting at Barbizon?)

She remembers, too, how Castle moved a bit closer when the guy kept answering questions to her chest. Not as if he thought she needed him to defend her honour, or as a beard to hide behind, but as if to say I'd be very happy to hold your purse while you take this dickhead down. The thought of which brings forth an involutary smile, and Josh glances at her sideways, because Professor Ralph McLaren holding forth about surgical applications of aortic graft tissue for asystolic whatever sure as hell isn't doing that. "But, oh dear," McLaren says, mistaking the smile for polite horror, "I appear to be turning your lovely lady's stomach with my gory details."

Kate holds her breath, giving Josh a chance to say something first - it's his boss's boss they're talking to after all - and when he doesn't, she opens her mouth and lets the response on the tip of her tongue roll off: "I'm a homicide detective. I could tell you what my latest crime scene looked like, if you have a taste for gore."

McLaren's suddenly blank expression is slightly gratifying, although Josh's lips have tightened in a way that says she's going to hear about this on the way home. Just then her phone goes off in her bag and she nearly sighs with relief. "Speaking of, that'll be work," she tells Josh, without even checking first. "Please excuse me for a moment."

It won't be work, she's pretty sure of that. Esposito is off on one of his "secret" dates with Lanie (another involuntary smile). Ryan is snuggled up with Jenny, planning the precinct's wedding of the year (she must warn Jenny that no matter how much Esposito begs, she should NOT let him hold the stag night at McSorley's - there are many, many stories Kate can tell about those, and they all end in bridal tears). Harriman's squad is catching tonight, so even if a body has dropped it won't be hers and Montgomery won't call her off-duty since they've got no case open and he knows she has plans.

That leaves only Castle. The thought of which pushes Kate outside to the terrace bar, where the few smokers willing to brave the January chill are huddled around the one table with a heat lamp glowing softly from beneath its summer umbrella.

Kate moves over to the parapet and slides her phone out of her bag. Sure enough, it's him. "What part of night off do you not understand?" she asks, barely noticing the icy breeze blowing up from the street, protected as she is by the heat suddenly rushing to the surface of her skin.

"The part that's off, I guess, though I'm sure with a small effort I could imagine."

She laughs, and for a moment it's like Castle is standing behind her, wrapping her in his tuxedo jacket while he's still wearing it. "Was there something you wanted to say, or were you just checking to see how bored I am?"

"Both. And is the answer very?"

Now she sighs. She shouldn't be playing this game, not with Josh waiting for her inside, where it's legitimately warm. Isn't this the reason she has a Josh in the first place? To make sure she never thinks about Castle as possible again?

"It is," she admits. "It's also very cold. I'm standing outside on the terrace."

"What are you doing out there?"

"Taking an apparently pointless phone call."

"You had to go outside to...never mind." The banter drops out of his voice, as it generally does when the subject of Josh comes up. She guesses he's still smarting a bit from being dismissed as that writer, much as her other partners are still bristling about being verbally patted on the head. "Rafael, the victim's nephew. Said something about how she gave him the ten thousand to start a college fund for his son. Now, since when does a cable repairman who flunked out of high school think about a college fund for a two-year-old?"

"Has Alexis been talking about Oxford again?"

"Cambridge, actually, and I'm staunchly pretending she means the one with Harvard. But do you see what I mean?"

"I do. But we're already watching his every move, so until we've got something more concrete to go on, there's nothing to justify a warrant. Maybe the aunt really did want the kid to have the kind of chance they didn't."

"Maybe." She hears a drawn-out undertone of disappointment in his voice, one she steadfastly refuses to interpret as a reluctance to let her go. And she should get going - the thin silk of her dress isn't much more covering than being out here naked, and she really is starting to get cold.

"Castle-" she begins, but he cuts her off brightly.

"I know, I know. Go back inside and be bored and warm. Make Josh bring you a vodka martini. Double."

"I prefer mine dirty, and I can do it myself," she answers and clicks off, indulging in one last mental image - his gobsmacked face staring at the phone.

She does indeed stop at the bar on her way back in, though it's champagne only, which is not warming at all. Josh gives her a curious look as she lifts his arm and slides neatly beneath it. She's not usually this affectionate with him in public, but it looks appropriate enough and the heat of his arm feels wonderful draped over her bare shoulders.

"Everything okay?" he asks.

"Fine, nothing that can't wait till tomorrow." She takes a sip of champagne and shivers involuntarily against his side.

"You're ice cold," he says, holding her closer. "Where did you go?"

She rises slightly to whisper in his ear. "Take me home right now and I'll let you warm me up."

"Kate, you know I can't," he whispers back, rubbing his hand over the chilled flesh of her upper arm. "It's only nine o'clock, this thing's barely started. And it would be rude to show up, grab my award, and then run."

"I know." She tries not to sigh, tries not to imagine the stunned delight on Castle's face if she ever said something like that to him, or how quickly he'd have her out the door. She never goes any further than that moment, not even inside her own imagination. If she wants to know what it might be like to make love with Richard Castle, she only has to read his books. Which, since her near faux pas at the beginning of last summer, she most emphatically does not need to know.

She looks up at Josh instead. He's hardly second-best, dreamy eyes and big career. For all that it's not his world and that makes him awkward in it, he does respect her job, she's quite sure of that. And he likes her. A lot. "Quickie in the supply closet then?" she offers, with her most mischievous smile.

"You have no right to be this hot," he answers, punctuating it with a kiss to her forehead. "I'll make it up to you later, I promise."

And on that promise at least, she knows he'll make good. As for Castle, well, they'll never have Paris, but there'll always be the 12th.

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