"Come on. Let's go for a beer."
Ryan grabbed Beckett by the elbow. She had a glow on her face that was probably a combination of the flirting she'd just been doing with Castle and the adrenaline rush of surviving being locked in a basement with a tiger.
"I have paperwork!" Beckett objected.
"It can wait." Esposito said, flanking her. "We need to talk."
Beckett looked back and forth between the two detectives as they gently marched her toward the elevator. She didn't have to ask what they wanted to talk about.
"I didn't-" Beckett started to talk as they rode down to the ground floor.
"Save it." Ryan said. His lips were pressed in a thin line.
The three walked quickly. They weren't headed to The Old Haunt. They were headed to a bar on the same block as the precinct house. It was dark and cramped and smelled of stale beer. The prevailing color in the bar was the dark blue of the patrolman's uniform, adding to the overall gloom of dark varnished wood marked with years of wear. The three detectives easily found a table in the corner, away from the noise of the bar.
Esposito took the chair facing the door, nodding quiet thanks to Ryan and Beckett. His friends understood that even more than most cops, he had a paranoid need to keep an eye on things. That sort of understanding was one of the reasons he was so angry that one of his friends had put herself in so much danger.
A waitress in jeans and a faded NYFD t-shirt came by and set down cardboard coasters. Ryan ordered a round and the three detectives waited with an uneasy silence between them until the beers arrived.
"Can I say something now?" Beckett asked impatiently after the drinks arrived.
"Yeah, no." Esposito said. "Why don't you let us do the talking?"
"Oh, be my guest." Beckett said.
"Of all the stupid, stupid things you could do." Ryan said. "I can't believe the Captain didn't tear a strip off you for that stunt."
"Sounds like you're going to make up for it." Beckett said. She crossed her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair, not touching her beer.
"You can sit there and pretend you don't know why we're pissed." Esposito said, leaning forward. "But you know you screwed up, and we want to know what the fuck you thought you were doing."
"I thought I was following a lead." Beckett said. "It's sort of my job." Her tone was sharp.
"Your job doesn't involve going off on your own, with a civilian, without leaving any way for anyone to know where you are." Ryan said.
"Rick isn't just a civilian!" Beckett said.
"Nah, he's not just a civilian, not any more." Esposito said. "But he doesn't have a badge and a gun, either. And you know it. You really gonna sit here and pretend you didn't do anything wrong?"
"Okay, I should have written it up on the board before we left. I just..."
Ryan and Esposito swapped a glance. Finally. "Just what?" Ryan said, more softly.
"I didn't think, okay? I screwed up. I just wanted to chase down the lead, solve the case. We didn't have anything, then we got the address and it was something I could do."
"Listen Beckett, I know things have been..." Ryan rubbed his forehead and took a sip of his beer while trying to figure out how to finish that sentence. Beckett of all of them had neatly avoided talking about any of her feelings after she got shot. Esposito had some kind of talk with her, Ryan knew that much. But it wasn't like any of them actually enjoyed talking about emotions.
"Things have been what, Ryan?" Beckett said.
"You know. Tough. I know things have been tough lately." Ryan sighed.
"Tough. Yes, I got shot through the chest. It was tough. Can we not read every little mistake as a sign that I'm losing it, guys?"
"Kate." Esposito said, looking at her over the battered table, holding eye contact in an uncomfortable way that she knew must be killer in interrogation. "You went to an unknown location without proper backup. Castle's great, we know that, but like I said, he doesn't carry. He doesn't have the training, or situational awareness, the years on the streets. He's a writer, so he's damn good at picking things up and acting in a way that makes us forget he's not one of us half the time, but he's not. You didn't leave any way to reach you. We almost lost you once to the shooter, and today we realize you're missing, and we have no way of knowing where you are. You acted like a rookie."
Ryan joined the tirade. "What do you think the Captain would have said if he was the one who couldn't find you, and there was nothing on the board, and dispatch didn't have anything on where you were?"
Beckett looked down at her hands, her fingers resting on the wood of the table. She knew that he was right, she just didn't appreciate being hauled off and taken to task this way. Captain Gates had let it slide, though god knew why. She probably just thought that this was another example of the loose ship she seemed to think Captain Montgomery was running before she took over. Kate knew Roy would have torn her a new one for what she'd done today. He'd have had her riding a desk for a week.
She raised her eyes to look at Esposito and at Ryan. They still looked angry, but it was tempered with some amount of compassion.
"I don't know, okay? I don't really want to sit here and dig into the why. Yes, I made a mistake. I'm sorry. It won't happen again."
"We lost the Captain. We thought we were going to lose you. We're kind of used to having you around. Don't do that to us again, or it won't be the tiger you have to worry about." Ryan said.
"I won't. I really won't." Beckett said. "If you're done cross-examining me, am I free to go now?"
"You don't want to stick around, have a beer, wind down?" Esposito said, raising an eyebrow.
"I'd really like to just get home and get changed." Beckett said. "It's not every day I face a tiger."
"Take it easy, okay?" Esposito said.
"See you tomorrow." Ryan watched her leaving the bar, her coat pulled tight around her, her shoulders hunched in. She seemed so much smaller since the shooting, thinner and always bent in on herself, as if she could protect herself from the world.
"If Castle were here he'd have a theory about it." Ryan said.
"If Castle were here we'd be too busy giving him hell for his part in the screw-up to hear it." Esposito said.
"Seems like she's still trying to prove something, to prove she's back and good to go." Ryan said. "She should know she's got nothing to prove by us."
"Bro, I don't think it's us she's trying to prove it to."