Greatings ladies and gents. No you aren't dreaming. I just feel like I haven't written anything in a really long time. But here we are with a pretty long oone-shot that has been bugging me for a really long time. It's set in Season 5 sometime before the gang at the precinct find out (so maybe like before 5x05, I don't know). Anyways, I have another half-written story that is much shorter and possibly fluffier than this one that I'll post tomorrow so look for that.

In the mean time, please review and I'll love you forever.

*Just a note, the image is not mine, it's by the amazing Ginalways on tumblr (seriously check out her fan art)*

As always you can follow me on twitter #vatrask or on my new blog

Enjoy

Buzzzz. Buzzzz. Buzzz. Thud. Bzz. Bzz. Bzz.

Kate groaned as she brought her hand up from the great, black abyss to land heavily on the side table only to find it devoid of vibrating cellphone. Pushing up on her elbow, she squinted over at the empty table in confusion as the muffled buzzing sound continued from somewhere on her side of the bed. Behind her Rick groaned and sloppily threw his hand over her comforter-clad waist, not waking from his slumber but instinctively seeking her warmth.

Bzzz. Bzzz. Silence. Ding.

Clawing at the edge of the mattress, she pulled herself up to the edge to peer down and look at the object of her annoyance, now flashing – blindingly – with the notice that she had a message. Using Rick's protective sleepiness to her advantage, she reached over the edge for her phone and rolled back so she was lying with his arm under her, fingers curled at her ribs. She knew his arm would probably fall asleep but she was comfortable.

Practically glaring at her phone she touched it on to find a missed call and a message from the precinct but more specifically, Captain Gates's private line. Great. The time stamp on the message from moments ago read 4:26 AM. Even better. Bringing the phone to her ear, she listened to the carefully worded, barely contained anger of her captain before shooting up in bed and dropping her phone back on the side table.

"Castle I gotta go to the precinct. Gates sounds pissed." She looked down at him as she rolled from his bed in a mad scramble to gather her clothes from the darkness of his bedroom. He didn't stir. Rushing around the room she continuously picked up article after article of Rick's clothing. Where the hell were her clothes? She knew she had a drawer full of clothes that varied from work appropriate to not-safe-for-work; if only she could find it. Running right into the edge of the dresser she cursed as pain shot through her toe but subsided when she finally grabbed hold of the dresser drawer and tugged.

It stuck.

She tugged once and she felt it laughing back at her. She tugged again, a little harder, and it shook with fear. Third time she finally nudged it out of its hiding place enough for it to breathe the balmy, morning air not yet settled from their night of restless sleeping. It took four more times for the drawer to nudge free only for her to find it nearly empty except for a pair of underwear and a crumpled pair of grey slacks. Where the hell were her clothes?

Tugging on her cotton underwear that she assumed was black or some dark colour she continued to call to her boyfriend who refused to stir from his sleep. Poor baby, she found herself smiling, she really wore him out last night. Shopping, dancing, chasing down suspects, love making on an adrenaline high; she had promised herself last night that she would let him sleep in no matter how much he complained. So she didn't try very hard to wake him up. He deserved some sleep. So, standing at the foot of the bed dressed only in underwear and a pair of pants, she just smiled down at him with adoration shining in her eyes. He was actually quite adorable in the morning light with the pink sunlight streaming in from the window; his hair tousled taking ten years off of his life, the twisted blanket strategically covering only his butt. Her corner of the bed – he liked to sprawl – was bare and inviting, the imprint of her body was still molded into the mattress, tempting her to sink back down into him until his arm was asleep again. But the phone on the table kept taunting her, reminding her that she was a working girl whose boss wanted her at work – at 4:30 in the morning – for some reason that could only mean doom. Captain Gates had this magical way of ruining a moment even from miles away.

Right. Gates. Okay, time to find a shirt; somewhere in the dark bedroom. She felt around the floor but found it empty – searched the other dressers that were mysteriously easy to open – but could find no more of her clothing. So she grabbed a dress shirt that she knew was a little too small for Rick, tucked it into her pants and prayed that no one would notice she wasn't wearing a bra. Where the hell were her clothes? But there was no time to worry about that now. When Gates yells into your phone that she wants to see you 'now' she means now. So she ran through the loft searching for her shoes along with her weapon and badge, grabbed her car keys and was out the door.

The apartment fell into silence and for a moment, everything was at peace with the rising sun and the early hour but a moment later the door flew open once again as Kate Beckett rushed back into the apartment. The disturbed air followed behind her like a line of fairies as she dashed into the master bedroom to once again face her sleeping lover. Without pausing she crawled over the bed to look over him with a smile. Leaning down, she kissed his cheek fast and sweet, pulling away just as quickly, a grin spreading over her face as she whispered "good morning" before scrambling off the bed and out of the loft, the light once again settling into familiar places.

In a ridiculous turn of events, murder prevented Beckett from getting to work on time. A pop and drop on the street just outside of the 12ths jurisdiction blocked off two of the three lanes reducing the usually normal driving conditions to a near standstill; knowing how territorial some police officers could be she made the standard drive-by head nod asking if they needed assistance but they waved her past so she pressed through – slowly – and eventually made it to the precinct. She found it nearly empty except for Ryan and Esposito sitting at their desks barely alive and the ever vigilant Captain Gates in her open office with the lamp on her desk offering a beacon of despair for all who dare enter her lair.

"Morning guys." She leant against Esposito's desk, startling them both to a semi-awake state. "Any idea why Gates called us in this morning?"

"Not a clue." Ryan mumbled, already collapsing back into his coffee cup. It had been a long, sleepless night for all of them, especially the poor Irishman who recently found out his wife was pregnant. "Was up anyways with Jenny and her morning sickness."

Beckett cringed but turned to his partner to find the Hispanic detective equally as tired – another late night in singledom, she smirked – with the added benefit of an empty coffee cup. "I just got home from a stake out an hour ago." He mumbled "Sheradon's team was short a man so Gates had me fill in and then she calls us in now?" His head hit the desk before he had finished his sentence.

"What about you Beckett?" Ryan lifted his head enough to ask for her horror story and she was this close to make up some tragic story about an old lady dying in the apartment above her and the smell waking her up – or some ridiculous story that she wasn't coherent enough to think through – when Gates startled them by simply making an appearance.

"Ah detective Beckett, how nice of you to make an appearance? If you'll all step into my office." They exchanged glances, willing the other to move but not finding the motivation to. "Now!" There it was. They were bolting from their chairs and were standing in the captain's office in three seconds flat.

It did not go well. Beckett had spent so much time with her head bowed in shame that by the time they were released forty-five minutes later – putting the time at 6:00 – she had a crick in her neck that must have matched the one Ryan had in his fingers from rubbing them every ten seconds. She was convinced that Esposito slept through the entire thing and only nodded along subconsciously.

It was her fault actually. The case they had closed two days ago was a messy one. Lots of open ends and loop holes that she didn't like having in a case that she led but she had been running on caffeine for the last three weeks and she was anxious to get home – something that only started happening after she started dating Richard Castle. And the paperwork she'd shoved in a folder and threw in her drawer around ten o'clock two nights ago hadn't reached the DA last night and thus the warrant they'd pretended they had didn't show up in evidence and the cold-hearted murderer they'd just spent four months tracking down was released from holding. Beckett wasn't supposed to throw the warrant in her drawer and Ryan was supposed to take the file to the DA to 'prove they'd gotten it on time' and Esposito was supposed to remind Ryan so Gates didn't find out that they'd arrested the man under false pretences. Oops.

So after a nice long tongue lashing and a 'you are off all open cases until you catch this son of a bitch properly' the dynamic trio were released from prison and sent to their rooms without supper. Desk duty for the next three weeks, trying to solve a case from the precinct with no field work allowed at all.

To say that they were pissed would be an understatement. Yes it was their fault but that didn't mean that Gates had to punish them for it. Now all that was left to do for the day was grab another cup of coffee and pretend to do paperwork until this case was solved. It sucked. But hey, maybe because they were starting early they could get off early as well. Not likely, but there was always hope.

Around eight o'clock she heard from Rick who told her that Alexis was having some sort of mid-term mental break down. Normally she would tell him that he needed to leave her alone but this time it was an actual emergency – exams during her first semester of college had been the most horrifying thing she'd ever experienced in the world of education – and so let him off with a warning that he was not allowed to invite her back to the loft or she would stop shaking his hand. The boys who had been busy at their desks looked up at the lusty tone in which she had said the word "handshake" as though it were something it wasn't – which it was but they weren't supposed to know that – but she waved them off and took three strides into the break so that she at least had some semblance of privacy. But just as she was about to suggest what sort of things handshakes involved in that same lusty tone, he informed her that his cellphone was on the verge of death and he would call her when he was done with Alexis.

She smiled at his fatherly-side, so rare and yet so infused in his personality, and slipped her phone into the pocket of her pants and decided to make her second cup of coffee for the day. She went about the routine that she could do in her sleep – which came in handy on days like today when she was barely awake – and was about to press 'start' when she heard a hissing sound that was definitely not part of the soothing espresso machine sounds she'd come to enjoy. And then it hissed again, this time producing enough steam to blind her in a fog of hot, coughing mess. She briefly imagined a dragon emerging from its cave to challenge her sanity and made a quick note to stop reading before bed – even if Rick did find it a ridiculous turn on. And then the espresso machine that she had come to love like a little brother made a popping sound and she barely managed to duck as a piece of the machine went flying and landed somewhere near the couch. Crap.

The moment the steam was cleared enough for her to at least see, she inspected the fire-breathing dragon, hoping it wasn't dead and was merely sleeping but when she poked it, it didn't open its eyes or even stir to provide a sign of life. The espresso machine was dead.

"Boys." In a room full of detectives (mostly male) the only boys who came running were hers having learnt that tone of voice form years of screwing up.

"What's up Beckett?"

"Did you do this? Because you are trying to pull another prank – the one that I came up with by the way"

"Whoa, what's wrong?" Esposito moved in to expect the machine himself and turned to her with a look of sheer terror on his face "are you telling me the espresso machine is broken?"

Ryan caught on and his face mirrored his partners with a little pasty-white horror to go along with it "Beckett we would never do a same dare twice, you know that."

Of course she believed them but that would require accepting the cold, hard, disgusting truth. "So…the coffee machine is officially… broken?"

"I…I think so." Ryan gulped, looking rather like a puppy had kicked him.

"But it's no big deal right? One day without the good stuff and we get Castle to buy us a new one tomorrow." Esposito tried to shrug it off but his partner's comment made him shiver.

"Can you go back to the old stuff?"

The Hispanic detective shook his head "hell no."

"But we have to." Beckett groaned. "It's better than no coffee at all."

"Not much." The Irish detective mumbled as he reached out to caress the old, broken machine. "But I guess it was bound to happen sometime. I mean the thing is almost five years old."

"But did it have to happen today?"

And she found herself asking that question a lot throughout the rest of the day. Her stapler stapling her instead of her twenty page report; her elephant statue getting pushed from the edge of her desk and breaking the heard into separate pieces; the newbie detective from the fifth getting assigned the empty desk across from her – and he recognized her as Nikki rather than the youngest female detective with the highest closure rate in the precinct.

The worst part came when Rick finally made it to the precinct around three o'clock. The newbie was out on assignment – thank god – and Rick was distracted thinking about Alexis and whether or not his mother had snuck her acting class into the loft like she'd hinted at this morning. He also explained that Martha had been 'consumed' with the maternal urge to do laundry at ten o'clock last night and so had gathered as much of the clothes as she could in the dark and threw them all in the laundry. He seemed more horrified than she did that his mother had, in fact, seen the two of them in bed, snuggling.

He didn't bring her coffee. Of course he hadn't known she was out of coffee at the precinct but that was no excuse – he's supposed to just know these things. When he discovered the tragic passing of the beloved espresso machine he immediately placed an order for a new one to be delivered as soon as possible and even went so far as the offer to buy everyone coffee. Beckett vetoed the second part – much to everyone's chagrin – and told him that since he was here, he could at least stay and keep her company.

That was when the Iron Gates appeared and slammed in her face, stating in no uncertain terms that because she was grounded she was not allowed any toys to play with – castles included. She didn't say that exactly but by 3:30 her secret boyfriend had come and gone with a measly handshake that was more of a 'sorry babe' than a 'I dip you and kiss you passionately in the middle of the precinct' which would have been nice.

And because the universe hated her, the newbie she had dubbed 'Hinesburg' managed to step off the elevator just as Rick was stepping on, leaving her defenseless to the fan-boying the took up the last few hours of her day.

"You have a pretty good arrangement with Mr. Castle." Her head shot up as Hinesburg returned from getting his cup of coffee, rubbing it in her face.

"What?"

"The shadowing thing that he's been doing." He sat down, leaning back in his chair so her view of Ryan and Esposito was obstructed – not that they would have helped her anyways. "It gets the police department good publicity and his book really are good." She thought he would leave it at that but no, or course not; he leaned forward and said in a conspiring whisper "but I gotta ask: how real are those sex scenes? I mean how much of Nikki Heat do you really inspire?" Kate Beckett had never been so tempted to use her stapler as she had in that moment.

But finally, finally, six o'clock rolled around and Gates wasn't looking so Beckett and the boys hi-tailed it out of there before she threatened to hide their car keys – they knew it was coming down to that eventually. They stood in silence, each too exhausted and anxious to make small talk. But the moment those doors opened on the underground parking lot, they waved goodbye and headed to their respective cars.

The first thing Kate did when she got in her car was call Rick. "You've reached Rick Castle – lucky" Damn, it went straight to voicemail. Next she tried the house phone – he had to be home if he had his phone turned off. "Hey you've reached the Castle residence" she ended the call before Alexis could finish her sentence. Where the hell was he? Still with Alexis? Fine, she decided, she would just head over to the loft and surprise him when he did get home.

She arrived at his front door in record time, a smile on her face, much too excited for what she knew would come late tonight. However, when she put her key in the lock, she was met with a rather disturbing sight.

"Gina? What are you doing here?"

"Detective Beckett," the publisher looked up from the fridge with a pleasant smile on his face. "I could ask you the same question." It wasn't accusatory parse but Kate was pretty sure there some innuendo thrown in there just for kicks.

"You first." The detective crossed her arms in the doorway.

Gina sighed, leaning against the counter "Black Pawn is worried because Rick's missed three of his deadlines and normally they would just drop a writer but they're convinced that Wonder Boy's an endless gold mine so I thought I'd come over to make sure he's on top of his writing."

The first thought that occurred to her made Kate gulp but she could help voicing it "like you stayed on top of him for Naked Heat."

The publisher laughed out loud, opening her bottle of water. "I don't think my fiancé would like that very much. He's the jealous type." She took a sig from the bottle before she placed it back on the counter with a curious look on her face. "How did you get in here?"

"Uh, the door was unlocked." And before Gina could refute that awkward claim, she continued "listen can you have Castle call me when he's done?"

"You two working on a case?"

"Yup." And before she could refute that awkward claim, Kate was out the door. Leaning against the back of it she ran a hand through her hair and took a long, slow breath. Well crap.

She headed home, determined to make the best of the evening. So she ordered Chinese and sat down to watch her PVRd episodes of Temptation Lane, determined to stay up until Castle called so she could thoroughly enjoy the benefits of having a boyfriend.

He never called.

By six o'clock the next morning she was awake and thoroughly prepared to storm over to his loft and give him a piece of her mind for abandoning her yesterday when she threw open the door to find the object of her disdain on the other side, looking at her with a bright smile and a cup of coffee.

"Good morning my love." She rolled her eyes, taking the coffee from him and grumbling a good morning as she moved aside to let him stroll in.

"Hold up," he paused mid-stroll to face her in the doorway "you didn't roll your eyes half-heartedly and say 'good morning is sufficient, Castle' like you do every time I say that." And then he looked at her with concern and she almost melted "what's wrong?"

She closed the door, admiring the view of his shirt rather than daring to look in his blue eyes, knowing that she'd give in. "Nothing's wrong, Rick."

"Rick?" He held her wrist when she tried to step away "now I know something is wrong." She grumbled that he knew her that well but still didn't look at him. "Kate?" Instinctively she looked up when he said her name and she melted just as she knew she would.

"You didn't kiss me yesterday." She whispered, pull her wrist out of his grip to take his hand fully.

"I shook your hand" he tried to explain but she shook her head in frustration.

"It's not the same and you know it." Yes, she was acting childish but god damn it, she was upset.

He tugged her forward so her other hand hit his chest, determined to wipe the frown off her face "alright, what is really the matter?"

"You didn't kiss me." She insisted.

He leered at her with a twinkle in his eye, pulling her completely against him "well if that's the problem then"

"No," she placed her hand on his chest; he needed to understand completely "I mean you didn't kiss me good night. You always kiss me good night even if we're fighting or if we don't sleep in the same bed. Even if it's three o'clock in the morning we never go to bed without a kiss."

He looked at her for a long moment, the light gone from his eyes as he came back to reality. "You really had a bad day yesterday huh?"

She sank into him, slipping her arms around to lean her head against his chest. "It was horrible." She pouted. "Nothing went right and I'm thoroughly convinced that it was because you weren't there."

He smirked but kept his arms tight around her back "what happened to the Beckett who didn't want me around all the time?"

"What happened to the Castle who didn't care?"

"He fell in love and grew up." He smiled, pulling her tighter to him, feeling her heart quicken with his soft words.

"Well she fell in love and learned to be sensibly childish." Her whispered words made him smile more – he might have even sighed though the judges are out on that.

"And I love her more for it."

She pulled back watching him with that same pout on her face but this time at least it was laced with a hint of a smile. "Well she's pissed because her boyfriend is being a mature, responsible person instead of kissing his girlfriend and making her feel better."

"I'm sorry." And he pulled her to him for a sweet, slow kiss. Her lips opened on a sigh as she melted against him, her arms coming around his neck to keep him as close as possible. He responded by keeping his hands around her waist and dipping her just enough to make her moan. His tongue pressed into her softly and soothed away the day's frustrations. Slowly, sadly, they pulled away with two quick kisses to ensure that everything had melted away to leave nothing but contentment. "There;" he smiled against her lips "all better?"

"Much better." She hummed, making no move to leave his embrace.

He smiled, no thought of asking her to move away. But the embrace turned into a casual embrace, their bodies locked as though they were never meant to be apart. "So, tell me about your horrible day."

She raised an eyebrow at him "you really want to know?"

"Every gruesome detail." He wiggled his eyebrows enough to make her giggle "I want to know how many kisses this is going to take."

Her giggle became a full blown smile. "Well then let's start the tally."