As promised yesterday here's another fan fiction … again from Beckett's POV. 

 
So, again he surprises me and I end up doing something completely out of character.

It's been two weeks since we shared that kiss out in the parking lot. A kiss that I'm still revisiting at odd times. During the day, in the middle of a crime scene and worse, at night, when I'm home alone. If I admitted it to myself, if he had pushed a little further, I would have let that kiss run it's course, saw where we might have ended up and I think it would have shocked us both. But, I'm not ready for that, and to his credit, Castle knows it.

But, I'm not thinking of that now, I'm thinking about the current situation and how he's completely thrown me off, again. He had been acting weird all morning, and it was later, when we interviewed Miss Langford, that the light finally dawned. When she looked at Castle and told him that his photo in the paper did him no justice and that he was better looking in person. I was surprised, normally he would have been “bragging” about that all day, but he was strangely silent about it. It was when she asked me if I was the detective-girlfriend, that I understood why he had been acting so weird all morning. “Don't….show me…….now!”

As we headed to the break room, all I kept thinking about was how many different ways I was going to kill him. We stood at the table, as I read the little blurb about “us” I was again thinking about how I was going to kill him. “Romantically involved … what did you tell them.” “Rumored to be …”, like that was going to make this easier. All I can think about now is that someone saw us, and this is what fuels me as I go into how hard it is to be a female detective and how this will affect my reputation. It's during our exchange that he gets an idea about whom might have been in the apartment and calls the paper. I end up speaking to the subscription supervisor, and I'm no longer thinking about killing him and we are standing closer then we normally did in the past. When I think about it, as I'm on hold, this lack of distance, has somehow become our “normal”. It wasn't that long ago, that I would have backed away, kept distance between us. Now, it's my body that has taken over, it seems to be drawn to him, a moth to a flame. How does he do this to me? I look at him, no longer angry about the newspaper article anymore, and he gives me that little smile.

We head over to the paper, to speak with the supervisor, and I've forgotten what happened earlier. We have a direction to move in now, and maybe a possible suspect. As Castle as pointed out in the past, I get cranky if I don't have a suspect. He finds me with the supervisor and I let him know I have the name of the carrier. We head back to the station, give Ryan and Esposito the subscribers on Carlson's route and they take off with their teams to each location. Castle and I are going to wait for Carlson back at the paper, when he comes in for his paycheck. It's then that Castle tells me the reporter that did the article about “us” gave him the name and number of the bachlorette in the same article that was interested in him. On the surface, I try to come off like I don't care. But when I think about it as he walks away, I'm troubled. As I look at the woman in the photo, I make a decision and head over to see Lanie.

Lanie has odd look on her face, when I tell her I want a date, that I'm game, she's always trying to set me up with someone. Again, the odd look and then she asks me what has gotten into me. I tell her I'm so wrapped up in my work, that I go home and it's quiet and I'm tired of quiet; I want loud. She hands me the name and number of a firefighter that she wanted to fix me up with before.

It's as I head out to my car, and look down at the name and number on the slip of paper, that I realize this didn't make me feel any better. I had thought before that if I had a date, because he had a date that I would feel better. As I sit in the car, key in the ignition, I admit to myself, that I feel worse.