So, ajksmusic and I think Gates totally knows. And my brain doesn't know how to think without snowballing, so here's a one-shot! Yay!

Disclaimer: Nope, last I checked I didn't own a thing.

Summary: "She knows exactlywhat Kate Beckett was doing last night." Post-'Always' through current season 5.

The storm is pounding against the window of her office. It's the middle of the night, and she knows she should have gone home hours ago but she's been dealing with all the paperwork from this...debacle, and now she's down two detectives.

Plus, she's not totally heartless, despite what she knows everyone thinks, and she's actually concerned about the wellbeing of her people.

She stares down the uniformed officer standing on the other side of her desk. Her hands are firmly planted on the solid wood, the heels of her stilettos are probably driving little divots into the flooring, too. But none of that matters, because she's got the officer sweating bullets, and she's not happy about having to send him on this particular assignment in the first place.

"Well, Officer? Report?"

"I tailed Detect-," he swallows, "Beckett from here. No reckless behavior, no incidents, unless you count the storm." The torrential downpour still rages outside of the precinct windows, but Gates is not amused by the man's attempt at a joke. He coughs, awkwardly when she only continues to glare at him.

"And exactly where did she go with this non-reckless behavior...for once," she mutters the last words under her breath.

"To a park, Sir."

"A park?"

"Yes, Sir. A little children's playground on the edge of Washington Square Park. She just sat in the rain."

What the hell? Kate Beckett resigns and then decides to just sit in the rain on a playground? The Captain is not at all sure of what she expected Beckett to do after she walked out of her precinct, but she's not really sure she expected this either. One of her best, now ex-detectives, gone. She expected more anger, a screaming match in her office, not the quiet resignation she received.

"Just...sat in the rain?" Her toe starts to beat an irritated rhythm, her fingers clenching just slightly in confusion and frustration. "Anything else?"

A hesitant look washes over the officer's face. He glances down at his notepad, mouth just barely open with words on the top of his tongue.

"Officer!" Now she's impatient. "Where else. Did Beckett go?"

"Ah...after about an hour she continued South on Lafayette, walking. Didn't really seem like she was going anywhere specific but then she stopped at his apartment building."

His?

"Who's apartment building?"

"The writer's."

"Castle's?" She can't even tell if her own voice is surprised, or upset, or just...confused. Last she heard the two had some huge fight yesterday, something about the case, no doubt. As she hasn't particularly cared for the novelist's presence in the first place she didn't over-think it when he didn't show up this morning, but now the relationship seems more relevant to the operations in her precinct than she had thought..."You're telling me she went to Richard Castle's apartment?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Well when did she leave?"

Again he looks afraid to say anything. While it's not really getting her information in a timely fashion, at least she knows she's good at her job.

"She hasn't."

"What do you mean she hasn't?" She is asking way too many of the questions here. It's making everything in her head begin to swim.

"When Officer Hastings took over, she was still there. That was an hour ago."

So, Kate Beckett spent an hour sitting outside in the rain after resigning, went to Castle's and now it's a quarter past one in the morning and she's still there. She has her suspicions, certainly. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put together the tension between the two with a near-death experience.

And the fact that she was screaming his name when they pulled her up from the side of the building.

"Alright," she sighs, considering the options in front of her, "here's what we're going to do. You don't say a word about this to anyone but myself, let Officer Hastings know, too. I want you to call and get someone from surveillance over there - tell them it's a confidential matter. I want eyeballs on Beckett until I say otherwise, understood?"

He nods.

"Good," she waves him to the door. "Get moving, Officer. And thank you for your discretion."

Gates waits for the door to click shut before sinking down into her chair. Chin pinched between her thumb and forefinger, she eyed Beckett and Esposito's badges and weapons where they were still resting on her desk. It's never good having to let people go, she knows that all too well. And she didn't want to let these two fall by the way of so many before them - they're good cops. She loves good cops, and if she's really honest, she loves this team. Sometimes she still wonders how they manage to get work done, what, with all their fooling around, but they work.

"Iron Gates" is a front she has to put up to make sure she's on top of things, but it's not who she is. And now she's not sure which part of herself she needs to use to get to the bottom of this.

...

She finds out exactly what "this" is the next morning when the officer running surveillance on Beckett brings her a file.

The precinct is buzzing - she's got Ryan still working Beckett's case, other officers doubling up on other murders, and she's still down two people, but when the man walked in, dressed in inconspicuous khaki's and a polo she had to step away. She snags the file from his hands, doesn't even let him explain what he saw before she's throwing something akin to a gag order in his face to sign, and shutting herself up in her office.

There's only one glossy eight by ten photo inside - Kate Beckett, windblown hair, frantically pulling on her jacket as she hurries out of Richard Castle's SoHo apartment building. And is she trying to hide her bra? Gates examines the photo, taken only mere hours ago. She notices how her clothes seem to be wrinkled - from sitting out in the rain - her eyes are cast ever so slightly downward, but most telling, she notices the annoyed, yet blissful look on her face.

Just the one picture is in the folder, but she doesn't need anymore evidence. She knows exactly what Kate Beckett was doing last night.

After all, she was a detective.

...

She doesn't say a word about it to anyone.

It helps that she's so furious with them that it just doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, while they're still trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

She ignores the fact that the returned-detective and the writer are together when she asks for her job back, puts up the "Iron Gates" persona, forcing her to take the suspension. It's not worth attacking them over yet, and after all the grief they've put her through she wants to have a little fun with this.

...

When Castle breaks her precious Gemini dolls she's tempted. She's oh so tempted to rip into him and kick him out. There are a few regulations she can cite, take a note from the writer and spin tales of how he could endanger her life...

But they've been doing such a good job of keeping it from her. Well...it would have been a "good job" assuming that she didn't already know...which they were assuming. They've been doing a somewhat decent job of staying mum, how long could they keep it up for?

...

It's the return of Jerry Tyson that shows her this isn't a passing thing.

Beckett is just so committed to Castle's innocence, so willing to go to whatever lengths necessary to keep him safe from what she was sure was certain doom. Regardless of the fact that she, herself, is not convinced that Castle's a killer, Beckett's devotion is obvious, and she's diplomatic enough about it that she trusts the detective with the job.

They come across Tyson's hole, the pictures, and it's there plain as day. If she weren't already sure, the photo she swipes would convince her.

She pulls the shot from the stack before the crime scene tech can put it into an evidence bag - Castle and Beckett, side-by-side on a park bench. It was captured through a tree judging from the angle, but anyone would be able to spot their legs with not a centimeter of space between them, and their hands, laced together.

There's something very peaceful and intimate about the picture, about the two of them just being together.

It's not something for public record, not by any stretch, so she takes the shot back to the precinct with her, folded up in the pocket of her windbreaker, and slips it into the file with the original evidence, locked in the bottom drawer of her desk.

...

She's not an idiot.

She knows the two of them coerced the director into "losing" one of the tapes.

But she has to admit; their commitment to keeping it from her is astounding.

And the looks on their faces when she brought them into her office, when they thought they'd been found out? 'Priceless' was an understatement.

...

Their parents show up and it takes everything she has to not say anything. She's about ninety percent sure Ryan and Esposito know, but she does not want to be the one to smash that window if they don't. No, it's not her problem.

But right now, Beckett and Castle kind of are her problem. Especially with a worried mother and father standing in front of her demanding to know if they're looking for their children.

She can't even imagine. Why didn't parents just lock their kids up until their fiftieth birthday?

So she reassures as best she can, even with the weight in her stomach, nagging.

It's also the last brick in the wall, seeing the Jim Beckett and Martha Rogers walk in together, dressed for more than just their respective evenings at home.

...

"I can't believe you're still letting them go through all this mess."

She can't help but let out a little laugh as she gets ready for bed, listening to her husband's opinion. Why she ever told the man, she doesn't know, because he insists on bringing it up almost weekly. He learned all too well from watching her interrogate their children and he's become an expert on how to question her - and he's so stubbornly set on this.

"Vicky, don't you think they've been through enough? And I thought you liked his books?"

"No, I like four of his books. And yes, I'm letting them jump through whatever hopes they're willing to jump through until they find their spines and come tell me that they're together. That they've been together for the past six months."

"You amaze me."

Now she grins, slides into their bed beside him, curling up to him in a way that would make her employees blush. "You're welcome."

"I'm sorry," he smirks, "I didn't hear a 'thank you' in anything I said."

"It was implied." She leans up to meet his kiss before tugging him down beside her. "Now quiet, I have to be back at the precinct early."

"Whatever you say Captain."

"Damn right."

I just feel like Gates is a lot more fun than she's letting on. And I want to meet Mr. Sir one day.

Let me know what you think! Happy Castle Monday everyone!

Tappin
=)