339. Chapter 339

After Lucky Stiff

Episode 3.14

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I'm not lucky enough to own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

Castle looked at himself carefully in the reflection of the glass refrigerated case, trying for his best Dirty Harry scowl. "I know what you're thinking: "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I've kinda lost track myself. But being this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself one question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya,… punk?" He snarled at his reflection.

He wasn't at all satisfied with the result and was going to try again when he saw a well dressed, older lady staring at him. He smiled at her, opened the display case, removed four bottles and walked to the front of the store to the clerk. On his way he saw a neon sign in the window. Suddenly he felt lucky. He felt very lucky.

Kate Beckett was angry, hot and tired. She had been in the park with Ryan and Espo since sunrise on the hottest day of the year looking for evidence and finding none. More than half of the day was gone and they were no closer to a solution to the killing than they were yesterday.

She felt a brief stab of anger at the sight of Castle sitting by her desk, looking cool and happy. He had been in air conditioned comfort this morning at the offices of Black Pawn while they decided to which pornographic image of Nikki Heat to put on the cover of the next book. No. That's not at all fair. After all that Castle has done for me and the department, I can't get mad at him just because he didn't spend all those hours broiling in the sun. After all he's done for me. Forget the NYPD. He's done so much for me, if only…Her thoughts stopped immediately. She was not going to go there. She couldn't go there. And I will not complain about Nikki Heat. Those books are the best things he's ever written. I'm proud and happy to be the inspiration behind Nikki. I can't ever tell Castle that, though. He'd…take it the wrong way. But I won't complain about Nikki.

Castle turned around and rose. "I heard from Karpowski that you didn't find anything."

Kate sat down, glad to finally be off of her feet. "Nothing." Was all she managed to say.

"I found something." Castle said, smiling like a little boy. "You're going to love it." He at once headed for the break room.

Kate looked over at Ryan and Esposito who shrugged. They had no idea what he had found either.

Castle came back with four large bottles and four paper cups. "I stopped by a gourmet food store just off of Lex. I knew you'd be hot and thirsty when you got back. He handed bottles and cups to the two male detectives, but made a production of opening Kate's bottle and pouring her drink. "This is the very best lemonade on the planet. You are going to love it." He handed the cup to Kate, who took it cautiously, then took a sip. She smiled to herself and guzzled down half of the cup.

"That's very good. It's terrific. Thank you."

Castle smiled happily. "I got something else. For some reason I was feeling very lucky there in the store, so I bought some lottery tickets." He pulled a handful of tickets out of his jacket, showing them to everyone.

"Castle?" Beckett said, frowning. "Lottery tickets, really? As if you're not rich enough?"

"I bought us lemonade and I bought us lottery tickets. I got five quick picks for each of us." He looked at Kate. "The quick picks are where the computer picks random numbers for you." He handed his friends five tickets each.

Beckett looked at hers, then handed them back to Castle. "I can't take these, Castle. I can't accept gifts from you. What if the department found out?"

"Beckett?" Ryan spoke up. "If you can't take them, that means we can't take them. Suppose we give them back to Castle and one of my...Er, one of our numbers wins. That's over a hundred million, assuming there's just one winner."

"Yeah." Espo added. "I noticed you didn't refuse the lemonade."

Kate looked at the three men on her team. Castle was practically begging her to take them using only his eyes. "Oh, all right. It won't mean anything anyway." She tossed the tickets into her desk drawer.

The next day at noon the lottery numbers were announced. Castle, Espo and Ryan sat in front of the TV reading their numbers over and over again. Then the numbers were announced. With each number called out, a groan went up from the men until all the numbers were called.

"I can't believe it." Ryan grumped. "Fifteen tickets between us and we got exactly one number? How could that happen?"

"Law of averages. "Beckett said.

"What did you get?" Castle asked.

"I didn't look."

"Well, look."

Beckett rolled her eyes, but decided that she should just get this over with rather than argue with Castle and probably the rest of her team. She checked the numbers. "I didn't win. I got four numbers only, so no millions for Detective Kate Beckett. Can we get back to work now?"

"You got four numbers on the same ticket?" Castle asked.

"Yes. I didn't win. Only four numbers."

"You didn't win the jackpot. Four numbers means you won $75,000." Castle announced.

Kate looked at Castle to see if he was teasing her. "You're kidding me, right?"

He pulled out a flyer he'd gotten with the lottery tickets. "It says right here, four numbers gets you $75,000. Of course, the feds take twenty or twenty five percent off the top for taxes." Castle said. "But still, you're looking at over fifty thousand dollars."

Beckett held the winning ticket out to Castle. "Castle. I can't take this. You bought the ticket. That money belongs to you."

He shook his head. "I gave you that ticket. It was a gift. Given of my own free will. It's yours."

Kate looked at the ticket and frowned. As Castle had said when they first met, her family had money, but not so much that she was accustomed to having that big of a windfall land in her lap.

"What are you going to do with it?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah. Tell us." Castle added.

"I…don't know." She said honestly.

As Beckett tried to work for the rest of the afternoon, her team members tried to think of things that she could spend the money on. They ranged from the absurd, Castle's suggestion that she buy her own island in the Caribbean, to his very sensible suggestion that she could donate the winning to her mother's scholarship fund or to one of the NGOs Josh worked with.

She arrived back at her apartment with no clear idea of what to do with the money. I really can't donate it to one of Josh's charities. He'd find out and he dislikes my relationship with Castle enough as it is. He'd never understand how I got that much money from Castle. He'd think Castle was somehow giving me the money. Donating to mom's scholarship fund is a good idea. No one but Castle would have to know, but somehow it's just not right. The money is rightfully Castle's, not mine. I have to include him in this somehow.

Kate thought for several days with no success. When Lanie found out, courtesy of Espo, she had tried to drag Kate off on a shopping expedition to the most expensive stores in Manhattan, places that Kate would never consider going to.

"Sweetie! Live a little. Use a few thousand of those dollars to have fun! You remember what fun is, don't you?" Lanie had enthused.

"As someone once said, money doesn't change you, it just magnifies your personality. I'm not going to buy a bunch of clothes I'll probably only wear once. And I don't need thousands of dollars worth of work clothes."

Lanie had eventually gone away unhappy.

Once she had completed the paperwork and gotten her money, she had an idea. A little research and effort and it was all done. She walked into the precinct with a sense of accomplishment. She gathered Castle, Ryan, Espo, Lanie and Captain Montgomery around her desk. "I've decided what to do with the money. Although he won't take any, this money really belongs to Castle."

"No, I've told you before…" Castle began.

"But I think I've found something he'd approve of." She handed her partner a sheet of paper. "I've donated the money to the Manhattan Reading Project, a charity that encourages reading by school children. Reading is something that I know is close to Castle's heart and also mine. The donation is in the name of Katherine Beckett and Richard Castle."

Castle smiled at her. "Thank you. I knew you wouldn't do anything frivolous."

"Yeah." Espo said grumpily. "Nothing frivolous that your friends could enjoy."

"Easy come, easy go." Ryan said and walked back to his desk.

There was one problem left for Kate. They were so happy to get the donation they insisted that Castle and I come to their next charity event to be publicly thanked. How will Josh take that? Do I need to tell him? What am I going to do?