Setting: a few weeks before "Valkyrie"
It's quiet outside, like a few hours ago someone had thought to throw a big, cloth damper over all the world. But that's DC for you. More suburb than skyscraper. Sometimes all the space makes her feel vaguely agoraphobic, like the fact that she's no longer surrounded by The City, that she can't find a falafel truck or papaya juice to save her life is slowly driving her out of her mind.
She lays there in her bed, in the crappy mattress. One of the many acquisitions from the mass Ikea run she'd made on her second day of employment with the Bureau. She'd gone just after work and picked things without really caring, because stuff was stuff, and she'd brought everything that was important to her with her (well, almost everything). She regrets this mattress though. It's like sleeping on a piece of old foam, and no matter how much she adjusts she just keeps sinking into it, slowly being swallowed, absorbed into the lining. It reminds her of a thousand bad hotel rooms. It reminds her of the bed in her dad's cabin.
She stares up at the popcorn ceiling, willing something like sleep. When she'd last checked the clock it had read 12:43. That had been at least a half hour ago, but she can't bring herself to check.
Yesterday she'd fallen asleep on her couch with an open report over her chest. Despite the lasting crick in her neck, she's halfway convinced she slept better on it than she ever has on this miserable mattress.
She stares up at the ceiling, trying not to think about the mattress, trying not to think about anything. She thinks about Castle though, off somewhere in California. They'd talked a few hours ago. He's in San Francisco, she remembers. The land of hills and hipsters and a thousand thousand eco warriors, most of whom smell vaguely like marijuana, most of whom had gone raw for a month and made things like avocado key lime pie and walnut meatloaf before falling back onto burgers and artichoke dip. She smiles, thinking back to road trips from Stanford, all the way up the coast.
Good days. Gone days.
She thinks about Castle again. She thinks about that picture he'd sent her on his phone, his arm slung over the shoulder of his cardboard double.
She finally turns to glance at the clock. 1:39.
Groans. Does a quick subtraction. 10:39.
Her phone's on the nightstand. She reaches for it. Taps a few panels.
It rings once.
"Beckett," is the answer.
"Castle," is the reply. She wonders for the thousandth time why they haven't moved onto first names yet.
"Miss me already?"
She pictures him smiling into the phone. From the background noise, she suspects he's out somewhere, maybe at the hotel bar. "Nope," she says.
"Well, I do. Publicist is plying me with drinks, trying to get me to sign another four book contract."
"Four books, huh?"
"That's a lot of books."
"I'm sure your buddy Stephen King would disagree." For some reason she wonders if the author's going to appear at the wedding.
"Mm," he breathes into the phone. She stops thinking about Stephen King. "I thought you were going to bed?"
"I am in bed."
"What're you wearing?"
"Nothing," she grins at the lie.
"Were that I not in public."
It's her turn to exhale into the phone. "Were that you weren't."
Silence hangs between them. 2800 miles, joined by an invisible tether. The distance seems impossibly, absurdly far, like it's a lie they'd both chosen to subscribe to for a reason neither of them could remember.
"I love you," she says, not really thinking about it.
"I love you too."
She stares up at the popcorn ceiling. "It's really late here."
"I noticed."
"I should go."
"I wish you wouldn't."
She smiles again, but not so wide. "Yeah, me too."
It's quiet on the other coast for a beat.
"Good night, Castle."
"Good night, Beckett."
She draws the phone away, hits 'End.' Tosses it unceremoniously back onto her nightstand. It lands three inches from her service pistol.
1:44.
Outside, trees rustle. One lonely car passes.
She rolls over, sinks into the mattress. Her pillow smells like detergent. Her life is still in boxes.