(Untitled)

[needthepractice]

There's a select group of people scattered throughout the Compound today, any of which someone might happen to run into, but only if they know where to look.

In the IPD Office, there's a tall woman with long brown hair sitting behind one of the auxiliary desks and filling out some long-neglected paperwork. She's been putting off her patrol

Comments

[stormweathered]

Castle hoped that Beckett was bound to look up soon or the looming cup of coffee above her head was going to turn into a dangerous situation in which someone got scalded and someone else got told to sleep in another bed -- and he had a suspicion he knew just who that would be. "Coffee for the overworked?" he piped up.

[needthepractice]

"Right there," Beckett murmured, absently tapping her pen against her empty cup. The hollow sound reached her ears and she glanced up slowly, grinning sheepishly as she finally came to terms with the severity of her situation. "Okay, maybe I do need a refill," she admitted, pushing her chair back from the desk to lean back slightly. They'd set up another chair along the side of the desk, a mirror image of the way he had often sat with her back home, and that alone was a comfort to her, not to mention his dutiful constant of bringing her coffee.

"Thank you," she murmured, reaching out to take it from him with a small smile.

[stormweathered]

Castle beamed away, pleased that he still could find some purpose for himself on the island -- even if he didn't get to be as much of a partner to her as he did before. Or maybe he was more, but in a different way. "My pleasure," he said, dutifully. "So, what are we working on today? Identity theft? A grisly murder?" he teased, knowing it would be nothing of the sort.

[needthepractice]

"Nothing that sinister," Beckett promised, replacing her old coffee with the new cup before glancing back up to him with a sigh. "Somehow I've gotten behind on all my paperwork - which seems impossible, especially here, but it's happened, so now I'm just trying to get ahead to save myself the effort later on."

She paused, picking up her pen to jot down a few more notes. "Everything okay?"

[stormweathered]

"I'm bored," he informed her with the air of a man who was dangerous when he was bored. Castle tended to veer towards inventing new dangerous items or being utterly and unbearably obnoxious. "I was thinking we could take a look at some huts? See what we think about expanding versus moving?" he suggested, practically pleading in order to do something.

[needthepractice]

"And you want me to do what about that?" Beckett asked, before her question was swiftly answered. She was almost dreading it, initially, given that he tended towards the ridiculous and often dangerous when the boredom got to be too much for him, but his suggestion didn't sound completely harmful. "Yeah? Got any particular places in mind?"

[stormweathered]

"You are my girlfriend, I'm pretty sure it's in the contract," he mused aloud with a thoughtful rubbing of his chin taking place. "Though, I did see this one hut that was up by the Green Arrow Estates and it seemed like a nice layout, we should totally copy it. Or! Or, we could give Alexis a taste of home and just mimic the loft?"

[needthepractice]

"Is it? This must have been one of the ones I signed while sleeping," she responded, hiding her smile behind the edge of the coffee cup as she stole a quick sip, returning it to her desk alongside its empty twin. "What are you leaning towards more at this point, moving or adding on?"

[stormweathered]

"Well, I mean, if the construction crew isn't busy, they could make a house of our dreams," he pointed out with the hint of a promising grin. "Everything you've always wanted. We could make floor plans and ask Alexis' opinion and build it into the place of our dreams."

[needthepractice]

"A bigger place," Beckett suggested out loud, giving her pen a few absent clicks with her thumb as she swiveled around in the desk chair, swaying back and forth for a couple seconds. "I mean, if we're planning future here, it stands to reason that having more square footage is going to be an important thing to remember."

[stormweathered]

"And," he said, sucking in a deep breath of air to confront the terrifying subject matter of what he was about to say, "if ever we really were to have that kid, we'd definitely need some more space. I don't think Alexis would want to bedroom-share with an infant."

[needthepractice]

Her face gave no indication that she had noticed the change in his breath or the hesitation before his next few words, steady and reflective as she nodded in response. "Probably not. If I was her age? I'd definitely carry a grudge if my dad pulled something like that," she added, grinning briefly.

[stormweathered]

"The eighteen year age difference might not work in our favor," he agreed with a mischievous grin, leaning in to press a fond kiss to her lips -- mostly just because he could. "Come on," he wheedled. "House hunting? With me? Please?"

[needthepractice]

"Oh?" Beckett asked, looking up just in time to find his face nearing hers, and she kissed him back without much thought - mostly because there wasn't any thought needed to just respond to something like that. "Right now? I guess that's as good a time as any."

[stormweathered]

"You're doing paperwork, you're not really busy," he insisted dismissively. His opinions on paperwork were fairly clear and present -- he honestly believed it was a pox on the growth of society, humanity, and so on and so forth. He hated it. And now, he was trying to free Beckett from it.

[needthepractice]

"I'm doing paperwork, and according to you, I'm not busy," Beckett countered, leaning back in her chair and regarding him with a challenging look, her arms loosely crossing over her chest. "You've made your feelings on paperwork perfectly clear over the years, Castle, but it's a necessary part of police work - although you're a writer, I would've expected you to understand the value of taking detailed notes."