I started another one-shot (not this fic, a different one) and it somehow turned into another long crime-fic! (why do I do it to myself!). And now I'm 18,000 words in and I still don't have them where I want them. But I realised I write better with motivation! And i'm really not sure if it's the reviews or just knowing that someone is reading and waiting to see what happens next that makes me write faster, but it really does work to stop me procrastinating. So while I wait to get it tidy enough to start posting i came up with this quick one. It's still not a 'drunk Beckett in a club' fic, i really have to get to that, but it's what came out of my brain when i thought about her in a nightclub.

Un-beta'ed. If you see something wrong feel free to point it out.

Missed Opportunities

Chapter 1- The Nightclub.

"Relax," she whispers into his ear.

"This is not relaxing," he gestures wildly around him, his eyes far too wide.

The club is swarming with people and the music thuds in his chest. The crowd is, in general, a good ten years younger than he is and while Kate looks every inch at home, her body gliding to the music, he feels his playboy party days far behind him.

"Castle," she waits until he is looking at her, "Relax. It's okay to have some fun with this."

He chokes out a strangled laugh, "Fun?" He scruffs his hand through his hair and over his face. The sight of her in this unimaginably short skirt – and he's done quite a lot of imagining over the past four years – her hair curling around her almost bare shoulders, eyes highlighted in black and silver-blue; it's enough to light all kinds of fires inside him. But the distance she usually keeps between them has suddenly disappeared and he feels skin and heat and he thinks he can almost taste her she's so close.

She places her hands on his chest and he knows there's no way she can't feel the thundering of his heart. But she's smiling at him, her mouth quirked sideways in amusement, and he realises suddenly that she's enjoying this.

"Are you having fun?" he squeaks out.

The hard edge of her shoe scrapes up the side of his calf. "I would have thought this scenario would have played out any number of times in your fantasies, Castle," she teases him.

She's right, of course, but in his fantasies he's so much more in control. He should know better; it's never taken much from her to make him lose control. "It's not quite the same in reality," he admits.

"Too much for you, Castle," she purrs.

"Or not enough," he says in a crazy moment of honesty.

She slides against him and he doesn't know what to do with his hands. Clearly she's not having the same hesitation; her hands haven't stopped moving over his chest and his shoulders and down along the length of his arms. He wants to tangle his hands in her hair, wants to feel what's it like to hold her with his palms splayed around each hip, he can't help the shock-inducing vision of running his hands up the sides of her thighs to disappear under her skirt.

"Did you want to dance?" her lips actually brush against his ear and her breasts press into his chest.

He closes his eyes and his brain almost shuts down. He wants her. Wants to press her into the wall and kiss her until she can do nothing but moan into his mouth. He's past the point of being able to play-act with her. The thought of dancing with her, at least the way her body is suggesting right now, is not even close to being fun.

He aches with arousal, and he hates that he's reduced to this. He'd happily turn up each day and be her partner; solve murders and stand at her side as she brings it to the bad guys. He respects her wall and accepts that she not ready for more. But it doesn't mean he's unaffected by her, and pressed together in this strobe-lit room there is far too much of her affecting him at the moment.

"Castle?" she's looking at him intently now, and seems to have dropped the playful seduction routine. Or maybe not – her arms snake around his waist and she leans into him; knees, thighs, hips, stomachs pressed together.

His hips flex forward in reflex, and he feels a growl work its way up his throat. He swallows it down and takes a breath, but the rise of his chest only serves to press them closer. He clenches his fists to stop himself from touching her. What he really wants is to slide his hands over the curve of her arse and pull her in against him.

Her back curves so that she can see his face and she studies him far too closely, her eyes dark and oh-so-alluring. She leans in again and he swears he can feel the vibration of her lips against his as she asks, "You want to get out of here?"

He fights to keep his body from betraying him and doesn't move at all. His hands remain at his side and he is hardly breathing. He really does want to leave; or they should at least take opposite ends of the bar. He's not going to have any chance of watching the entrance if she's within his line of sight.

"I'm going to go find Emerson and tell him we're heading out." Despite the fact that her tone is back to 'Beckett' it takes him several moments to catch up.

"We're leaving?" he can't hide the relief in his voice.

"Don't go anywhere," she instructs, and her fingers skitter across his stomach. And then his body is untethered without the weight of her against it and she is striding towards the bar.

He takes an unsteady step back and slumps against the wall, head tilted up, eyes closed. He takes a deep breath and thinks about blue chip funds, and the poor state of the economy, and his mother's latest play... and then he thinks about Ross McCulloch and the daughter he will never see turn twenty-one, and he thinks about Simon Anders and his wife who won't be coming home tonight, and Jill Ivernech who should have been starting her new job this week but was, instead, lying on a slab in Lanie's morgue.

They were the reasons he and Beckett and twelve other detectives had volunteered to help the 10th Precinct in maintaining a presence in the several nightclubs across lower Manhattan. It had sounded like fun when Gates had requested volunteers.

Castle watches his partner talking to the bartender, and realises his mistake; he had allowed himself to pretend the evening was a date from the moment he picked her up. Being behind the wheel of his Ferrari with her at his side had been more than enough to make the night feel outside of reality. But they'd come here for a reason and whether it was their case or not shouldn't make a difference – they had a job to do.

He pushes off the wall and strides to the bar. The bartender is passing Beckett her coat and he puts a hand out to stop him.

"We should stay until three like we said we would," he tells her.

He can see she's not convinced. The bartender has seen it before and he leaves them to make up their minds and moves instead to help the line of patrons looking for drinks.

She studies him, but it's her expression that has changed. She seems suddenly annoyed and Castle tries to work out what he's done wrong. He'd have thought she'd have been pissed at him earlier for not having his head in the game, not now when he is finally trying to be responsible.

"If we grab a table we can watch the bar, see if anyone else is sitting back watching the dancers."

"You want to stay?" she questions him. "You realise this is a total long-shot, right? The chance of any of their suspects showing up here, in this particular nightclub, is quite literally more than one hundred to one."

"Yeah, but if they do show up and we're not here to catch them..." he tries to decipher her frown, "I'd have thought you'd be the one to be telling me this."

"Fine, Castle," she says, and her tone is bordering on anger. She brings her coat with her and marches back towards the tables that rim the outer wall of the club.

Castle watches her go; her long legs made dangerous by the five inch heels she wears with mastery.

He curses himself for being all kinds of stupid. She'd had her hands all over him not more than ten minutes ago, asking him to dance, inviting him to have fun with her... and instead of taking advantage of the situation he'd stood quaking in his boots like some thirty-year-old virgin.

He seriously considers ordering a drink, thinks again – they're on duty after all – and then decides 'to hell with it' and flags the bartender.

He arrives at the table with two shots of tequila and lime, a jug of light beer, and a bottle of water. He drags a stool around so that they both have a partial view of the bar and the dancefloor.

Beckett knocks back her shot in one go and frowns, "Tequila? Really? That's what you went with?"

"What's wrong with tequila?" he asks, more confused by the edge in her voice than the question itself.

She doesn't answer, and he follows her gaze across the room to see what has her attention; there's a group of three women chatting on the edge of the dancefloor, a crowd of barely legal college kids jumping and grinding together in a hard-to-follow pattern, and a couple who really need to get a room... no one overly suspicious, certainly no one matching the descriptions of their suspects.

He is more than willing to admit he's missed something; she's gone from flirty to focused in under five and he's not keeping up. It's not often these days that he manages to aggravate her this badly, and it's been months since he's done it without knowing why. They are usually so much more in sync; he's become better at anticipating what she needs from him, and she's gotten used to accepting his help.

And then it dawns on him; he's made her uncomfortable. They were supposed to blend in, dance, have a drink, and watch the other patrons. Less than an hour into the evening and he was already lost in a haze of lust. He's never really bothered to hide his attraction to her; lately he's not even taken much to hiding that it goes well beyond attraction. And it's not like she doesn't know the effect she has on him... but he can see now that he let the situation go further tonight than he should have. He should have suggested a friendly spin around the dancefloor, should have kept their long established boundaries in place, should have stopped looking at her arse and paid attention to the job they were here to do.

"Hey, I'm sorry," he says, feeling more than a little disappointed with himself.

"Sorry for what?" she asks. It reminds him of the way Meredith would call him out when he was dolling out random cure-all 'I'm sorry's in an attempt to appease her moods.

"If I was out of line earlier or if I made you uncomfortable," he waits and studies her poker face, hoping for clues. She's still not giving an inch. "You said it yourself, this scenario – me, you, dressed like –" he gestures lamely, "a nightclub... we're getting into hazardous territory," he tries for humour where solemn apology failed.

"Have you spent a fair amount of time in nightclubs with women wearing ridiculously short skirts, Castle?"

He has, he supposes, but so long ago it feels like another life time. He's not sure how he's supposed to answer so chooses honesty to be safe, "I suppose I have, although not recently."

"And let's imagine for a moment that one of those women has her hands on your chest, her mouth against your ear," she leans in close to make her point, "her body pressed against you," and, inexplicably, her hand is on his thigh to make her point, "and that woman asks you if you want to leave with her... what do you think you'd say?"

"I don't..." he starts and promptly stutters. The distracting weight of her hand disappears and he still doesn't have any clue what she's asking. Back when he frequented nightclubs he'd hardly have waited even that long before taking a woman home for the night. But she's not asking to taunt him, she's not asking out of idle curiosity, she's certainly not just making conversation; she's pissed at him, as if... "Are you talking about yourself? The woman in your scenario...?" he's not sure he wants to say it out loud just in case he's wrong.

"Who else am I going to be talking about? Was there another woman here tonight pressed up against you?" she asks, and she's not bothering to conceal her annoyance any longer.

Holy crap.

She downs his tequila in one throw. His mind promptly deserts him to do cartwheels across the grass, except, where does that leave him now?

"You wanted...?" he still can't bring himself to say it.

"You, Castle. I wanted you."

Holy mother of –

"Kate?" his voice is little more than a squeak. He looks around him frantically; are the boys here about to pull the world's cruellest prank? Is he, in fact, sleeping soundly at home having the most convoluted dream ever? "I'm not sure if I... I don't..." He can't find the words to express his total lack of understanding.

"You don't?" she says, but her voice is flat and it's almost a statement. She finally looks as confused as he feels, "But I thought... Since when?"

Since when, what?

And she's suddenly grabbing her coat and pushing away from the table. She's half way to the exit before Castle can get his feet to work.

He catches her at the door and they walk out into the cold night together. She hasn't put her coat on yet and he reaches for it, tugs it from her grasp, and holds it up for her. It takes a moment, a moment of her frozen in place, before he looks up at her face.

Her expression is a mask – blank – like nothing he has ever seen from her before, and if it weren't for the tears trailing down her cheeks he would have stepped back. But the tears, they make all the difference, and he steps forward and wraps his arms around her.

"Kate? Please... Please, I don't understand what's happened tonight. I hurt you, earlier, it didn't occur to me. I wasn't expecting it. But you have to know..."

She is stiff in his arms. He rubs up and down her back hoping to both soothe her and keep her warm; she's not wearing anywhere near enough clothing to be out in this weather. He waits, murmuring assurances and apologies, and eventually she starts to relax against him.

She shifts slightly and he realises she's wiping her face, her tears, on his shirt. "Let's just call it bad timing, Castle."

"No! Kate, look at me," he waits for her to lift up from his shoulder, "It wouldn't matter when you chose, it would always be the perfect time. I was trying so hard to ignore... what I mean is –" He casts around for the words to explain himself without sounding like a letch, "From the second you touched me in there I couldn't think straight."

"That was that plan, Castle."

"You don't need a plan, Kate," he tells her emphatically, "You just need to tell me what you want."

"Okay, let's just forget it and... I don't know. Let's just call it a night and head home."

Not wanting to risk misunderstanding her again, he asks, "Are you saying 'let's get out of here'?"

"No, Castle. I'm saying I'm going home. I'll see you tomorrow." She steps away, putting distance between them.

"Tomorrow? I think I liked your other plan better."

His reward is the tiniest hint of a smile, "It felt like a good plan earlier, now it just feels like a train wreck." She is already looking away, refusing to meet his eye.

"I'm not ready to go home yet, Kate. I'm not saying we should go to your place, although you really have to know how much I want that for us," he reaches out to close the broadening space between them, "What I am saying is that walking away now – it feels like it would be a mistake. Can we go grab a coffee?"

"Coffee?"

"Or more tequila?"

"Coffee it is," she agrees.

He sighs in relief, and the weight that lifts from his chest is almost physical in relief.

He holds her jacket up for her again, and this time she lets him wrap it around her. He can't believe they're out here in the cold together. He can't believe that, if he hadn't misinterpreted her so incredibly badly, they could have been wrapped around each other in the back of a cab, or on her couch or, my god, in her bed.

He reaches for her hand, wraps it around the crook of his arm, and leads her along the sidewalk to the nearest cafe.

He doesn't want to think about it. But it feels like another missed opportunity.

They've only taken a half a dozen steps and he's already made himself a promise – he's not going to miss the next one.

###

A/N- Castle! Stop being a gentleman and just grab her already!

I have a mental list of other 'first times that go wrong' or 'missed opportunities' that i'm going to write when i get stuck on the other story but it might be fun to get ideas if anyone wants to share...

And, I'm on twitter now (and half on livejournal). Come talk to me! Mojordreaming.