Anger
Still not mine. Pity.
She had never seen Richard Castle so overwhelmingly, unbelievably angry, ever.
That she was the focus of the brewing thunderstorm of fury was something that she had thought would never happen. After all, she knew how Rick felt about her - he had actually said the words, and showed her every day, in a myriad of ways - so how he was acting was almost incomprehensible to her. She opened her mouth to ask when he held up his hand to silence her.
"Oh, no, you don't get to say anything," came out in a flat, furious stream: icy shards of ire directed at her. "You see, Beckett, 'the school's funniest kid' has had it with the constant putdowns. I've had it with the continuous sarcasm. And I've had it with the lies." he finished, all said with that same cold fury.
Kate Beckett took a step back as the realization hit her - he knew what she'd thrown at the suspect in interrogation yesterday. Her mind raced as she tried to come up with something, with anything to make the situation better.
To take the ice out of his baleful stare, and put the warmth back.
To see the look of love that she had grown accustomed to.
She must have hesitated just a little too long, because he started speaking again. "Here," he said as he removed some files, a burner phone, and a memory key from his bag and dropped them in a pile on her desk. At her stunned look, he went on, not caring who was listening. He knew that Esposito and Ryan were paying close attention to what was happening, and he had seen Gates sidle over to her office door.
Kate finally found her voice. "What are these for, Rick?"
"After Montgomery was killed, I got a call from a friend of his. I cut a deal to keep you safe, and it's worked, so far. Mr Smith," he said with a brief, sardonic chuckle, "uses the phone to keep me updated. The files are copies that he gave me of some of what Roy sent him. And the memory key has a copy of what I've been able to find out by myself." He took a deep breath, and the anger seemed to ebb, just a little, from him. He looked over at Gates and said, "Sir, please don't let Beckett go after these guys on her own. She'll just get herself killed." Gates gave a short nod. Turning to the boys, he asked the same thing of them. Once they acquiesced, he turned back to Kate, stone mask firmly in place.
"I'm done. No more using your life as 'my own personal playground'. Goodbye, detective."
And Rick Castle walked out of the 12th Precinct for what he truly believed was the last time.