#1 Flowers for Your Grave

Aren't You Curious?

xxx

You have no idea.

Rick Castle takes it as a promise.

He knows he's not supposed to, that it was never her intention to encourage him, only to send him on his way having had the last word, but he just can't stop thinking about it.

Her.

It.

Them.

The whole 'solving a real mystery' thing. The back and forth. Pouring over fan mail looking for a psychopath. He caught a killer, a bankrupt brother (he likes the alliteration) who had killed three people just to make his father grieve a daughter's loss, just to stick it to the dying man, and in the aftermath of all this messy and complicated story, Rick feels suddenly invigorated.

Inspired.

He writes all day, well into the night, nods off at the laptop only to wake again with a grunt and a reflexive tapping of keys.

He can't lose this.

He won't lose this.

She has no idea.

xx

Kate Beckett takes it as a punishment.

Whatever she's done to deserve this, she doesn't know, but it's life. It's so her life, isn't it? This is how it always goes for her. Two steps forward, one step back - the story of her career.

Not only is she fighting for every inch of respect she can get in this male-dominated bullpen, fighting for space to breathe outside of her mother's murder, but she's saddled with a prima dona rockstar-writer who thinks entirely too much of himself and his stupid stories.

And manages to delve a little too deeply into her own.

If she's being punished, then she'll set her jaw and take it on the chin.

She can endure this too. She has endured. Far worse. Whatever he thinks he's got going here, she'll bide her time, hand-holding him, and then she gets to kick him to the curb when he makes his first fatal mistake. Her detectives are her top priority, not his pride.

He won't last.

The Richard Castle.

xx

At home, she skims the spines of her books and tries not to wonder.

But she can't help it.

She's always been curious.

xx