The secret life of Castle and Beckett. AU – return to the pilot episode. Imagine they did go to dinner to debrief and then kept their personal life a secret. This is just a fun story, something I was thinking about a while back.

File one. Flowers for her grave.

"She hands the Tisdale guy over to the uniformed cops, then without any hesitation, strolls over towards me saying something like, 'Well, I guess this is it.' I was like, what? I replied with the fact it didn't have to be the end. We could go out, you know … so I asked her out for dinner, with some lame excuse like we could debrief each other on the case."

"Debrief? C'mon. And she said yes?"

"What? No." Rick shook his head. He took a gulp of scotch, swallowed then said, "She suggested she would just be another one of my conquests."

The Mayor laughed out loud, "She's right, Ricky. You're not exactly on page 6 of the Ledger for rescuing kittens out of trees."

"Ha! Good ol' days," he chuckled. "Yeah, well, besides that, this woman is something else."

"I like this woman already. She rejected you. Go on with your story."

"Ok. So, she believes I'm going to make her my conquest but I put countered that I could be one of her conquests. Let's face it, I don't know what her number is." He raised an eye brow, a questionable expression over his face.

"Her number?"

Rick's brow furrowed, "You know, how many men, or other women, that she's …." He waved his hand in a circle hoping the Mayor was keeping up.

"Oh, I see…"

"Good. Anyway, Beckett closed the conversation by stating it was nice to meet me. I gave it one more crack and said it was too bad that I thought we would have been great and we would be. I'm sure of that. I mean, keeping it between you and I, the chemistry between the detective and I is smoking hot, but I gotta be a gentleman. My mother didn't bring me up to be crude with women."

"Martha would still sit your ass on the ground if you were disrespectful. How is Martha?"

"Still searching for that elusive role on Broadway."

"I'm sure she is. So, the detective won't accept a date with you, the famous mystery writer," the Mayor concluded mainly to tease the writer who happened to be quite worked up about the detective.

"Yes, keep twisting the knife. She rejected me. But I insisted we would have been great. Then the detective," he paused recollecting the moment because he needed to give it justice when he described it to his friend, "She leaned right in, got very close to me then whispered in my ear, 'You have no idea how great'." He slapped his thigh, laughing then sat back in the office chair, saying, "That is going in a novel, sure as hell."

"So, did you get a date in the end?"

The writer shook his head. "Nope, she walked off down the alley towards her car. She swung the hips perfectly. And, just as she was about to turn on to the street, she did it."

"She did what?"

"She turned about. Not only did she look over her shoulder at me, she turned a one eighty, took two steps back and then continued into a three sixty. She likes me. I want her as my muse, my friend."

The Mayor chuckled at Rick's audacity but quickly sobered when he saw how serious his friend was.

"What do I have to do to get the opportunity to shadow her? I want to base my next novel on her, and in order to do that, I need to do research."

"Research. Is that what they call stalking nowadays?"

"I won't stalk her. I will simply be her shadow."

"Alright. There might be something I can do for you and this could be mutually beneficial. I will talk to the Captain of the Twelfth Precinct. He is also a friend of mine. But I know Montgomery and he is gonna want something."

"Tell him I will write a magazine article on being inside the NYPD, and then I will follow it up with a best selling mystery novel about a New York Detective. Female detective."

"Would be good for the NYPD's image." He put his empty glass down. "I'll see what I can do. Man, how hot was it her saying that in your ear."

Rick laughed wickedly. "It fuelled my fire, Sir. Inspired me."

A sharp tweet of a phone sounded from the back pocket of Rick's jean. "That'll be Alexis, wanting to know what we're doing for dinner. I'll have to get going."

"How is the young lady?"

"She's perfect, doing well in school. Growing. My old soul."

"It baffles me how she's your daughter, Rick."

"Take a number, Mayor. You're not the only one." Rick tipped the rest of his drink down his throat, stood up and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. "I've gotta run, feed my kid. Good so see you, and please let me know how you go with the Captain."

"Will do. I'll call him now." The mayor stood from his office chair and shook hands with the tall handsome writer. "Good to see you again, and let's make a date for a night of poker."

"Sure will. I will call my writer buddies and make a date. Monday or Tuesday night good with you?"

"Tuesday. Wife plays squash that night."

"Cool. Settled." Rick gave a wave goodbye over his shoulder as he walked from the office into the elevator foyer. He checked his phone expecting it to be his daughter saying she was hungry, after all it was almost 6.30 pm.

"And hello, it's not Alexis. It's Detective Beckett," he mumbled to himself as he stepped through the open door way of the elevator. He hit the G button, then slumped against the wall to read the text from the detective.

TBC

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