A/N : A missing scene from 2x17 Tick, Tick, Tick...
Disclaimer : Castle and its characters are owned by Milmar and ABC. I just like thinking up this extra stuff to do with what they created.
"Yes, sir….I understand I just don't think there is enough evidence to suggest we are looking at a serial here….Yes, I understand that this is a high profile case…..and it's the middle of tourist season and a murder in the middle of Grand Central Station is a cause for concern," Supervisory Special Agent Jordan Shaw rolls her eyes to the heavens as she quickly changes the telephone handset from one ear to the other and starts signalling through the glass wall of her temporary office.
"Sir, I just think that the NYPD is more than capable of finding this killer and until there are more clear cut indications that this is a serial case then the FBI doesn't have jurisdiction…..Of course, sir. Whatever you say, sir. I'll get a team together and make contact with the detectives running the case. Goodbye, sir," and with a frustrated sigh she replaces the handset into the phone's cradle just as her offsider, SA Jason Avery, pokes his head inside her office door, responding to her summons.
"You need something Jordan?" asks the young, bald African American agent.
"What I need is to get back to DC to my husband and my daughter but it seems that thanks to both the Governor and the Mayor of New York our esteemed Director has other ideas. What do you know about that murder at Grand Central the other night?" she asks him while rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands.
She's really tired. She and Avery had come up to the New York field office a week ago hunting a serial killer, Mark Cartwright, that had been targeting young women in Brooklyn. It had taken a lot of late nights but yesterday they had bagged the suspect in the process of attempting to abduct another victim. She had just been finishing up the resulting paperwork and looking forward to flying back home this evening when she got the frustrating call from the Director. God, she hates the politics in her job sometimes.
Avery comes all the way into her office at her question and with hands on his hips answers her in a slightly confused tone, "Uh, not much. Only what's in the press. I've been busy putting the paperwork on Cartwright to bed so we can get back to DC. Why?"
"Oh, only that the Director has decided that the case requires our particular attention so you better cancel our flight back and find out all you can about the case. Get me everything you can on it as quick as you can. Touch base with Garcia at Quantico if you have to. I'll talk to the SAC to get the same equipment and personnel we had for Cartwright," she tells him, her tone all business at the end as she puts aside her frustration and gets back into case mode.
Avery gives her a nod of his head in response and walks back out of her office as she gets up herself to make her way to the SAC's office. Time to make nice with the SAC so that she can steal some of his people again. She knows other SSAs that take their own regular team of agents and specialists from city to city and then move in with the local law enforcement officers to solve serial cases. Her method is for just Avery and herself to go to the sight of the case and utilise local assets as much as possible. Either working directly with the local LEOs working the case or combining that with a team of agents and specialists conscripted from the local field office, when there is one. Just as she had done with the Cartwright case and was going to do again with this one.
Fifteen minutes later she is back in the temporary office that she had been given upon her arrival at the field office and is speed reading the information in the computer monitor in front of her. Hmm, looks like we've got a suspect obsessed with a somewhat famous novelist's new character, Nikki Heat, and the NYPD detective it's based on, a Detective Katherine Beckett. She continues to read the information that Avery and Garcia had been able get from the NYPD and other sources on the case. There might be something to this after all. This case might be worth her and her partner's time. There are some definite markers, the message in the bullets and the personal call to the detective, which indicate that this suspect will kill again. All to get the attention of this Detective Nikki Heat aka Detective Kate Beckett.
She keeps reading some of the history of this Detective Beckett that even includes a recent Cosmo article and then gets to mentions of Beckett having worked with the FBI on two previous occasions on kidnapping cases. Well that's good. If she's worked with the FBI before then she shouldn't have a problem with her and her team swooping in on the case. After reading some of the details of the second case and then a later RICO case her eyebrows furrow with confusion and then disbelief at what she is reading. How the hell was that allowed to happen?
A knock on the open door of her office interrupts her thoughts and she looks up to see a tall, fair haired, square jawed male agent standing in the doorway. Her eyes narrow at the agent who is looking hopefully at her. It doesn't take her highly tuned profiling skills to know what this man is about to say given what she has just read.
"SSA Shaw, I'm Special Agent Will Sorenson. I'd like to request to be included on your team for the Nikki Heat case. I know the NYPD detectives involved and I think I can help with liaising with them," asks Sorenson smoothly as he walks confidently into her office.
Jordan leans back in her office chair, folds her arms across her chest and takes quite a few long seconds to regard the man in front of her. She deliberately does not ask the man to take a seat even as he stands next to the one positioned in front of her desk. No need to make him comfortable. This won't take long.
"Yes, I've just been reading about you 'knowing' one of the detectives involved in this case and what type of 'liaising' you're talking about. In fact you 'knew' the detective that is the focus of this case for a little over six months didn't you?" she asks, her words dripping with sarcasm.
Her tone causes a brief flash of uncertainty across Sorensen's face, "Ah yes, Detective Beckett and I dated before I was transferred to Boston. Because of that and the success we had on our last case together I think I will be ideally suited to assist you with dealing with Kate's…,I mean Detective Beckett's team."
She locks her gaze with Sorenson's as she wants to make it perfectly clear to him that she means everything she about to say to him, "I think the opposite will be the case and I am not about to let you to use this case as another excuse to try and hook up with your ex-girlfriend."
Jordan watches as Sorenson's face flushes red at her implication and he voices as much, "Agent Shaw, I protest that is not what this is….."
She holds up her hand to stop the man's protest and proceeds to let him know exactly what she thinks of him, "No Agent Sorenson that is exactly what you are hoping for again here and is exactly what you tried to do last year. What do you think this is? That the FBI is just you own personal dating service? Because I find it very curious that, a month after posting back to New York, you specifically requested Detective Beckett's involvement in your kidnapping case last year. Specifically requested her even though she is a homicide detective and not a member of the NYPD SVU team that would have been the more appropriate local personnel to work with. It looks to me that you didn't have the guts to just call her when you got back into town but instead decided to use a case as an excuse to approach her. That you decided that you would use the abduction of a child as an excuse to try and get back together with your old girlfriend. I think that is highly unprofessional and personally distasteful. In fact, given your past personal relationship with Detective Beckett I think your presence would be a wholly disruptive and distracting element that this investigation does not need. I don't know how the hell you sold your little matchmaking exercise to your supervisor last time but there is no way I'm going to let you within a hundred city blocks of this investigation."
"But Detective Beckett was instrumental in solving that case and finding the girl alive so I think I was more than justified in requesting her involvement," protests Sorenson in vain.
Jordan keeps her glare fixed on him as she responds, "Oh yes, she and her team were the ones to solve that case and that doesn't speak well of your abilities Agent. In fact all that tells me is that I am better off working with Detective Beckett and her people and that you have nothing to offer that will add to the resolution of this case. On top of that I find your judgment suspect where Detective Beckett is concerned as demonstrated by the reason you were shot last year. You jeopardised the safety of a witness in a major RICO case just because your old girlfriend asked you for a favour. You're just lucky that Detective Beckett was able to lure that contract killer into a trap and so she was able to be turned into a federal witness. At least Detective Beckett is able to make up for her mistakes. No, I see absolutely no reason that you would not be anything but a hindrance to this investigation and also that you have no skills that would be an asset in catching this killer."
Sorenson's mouth has fallen open and his face has gotten even redder at the dressing down from the senior agent. He's been caught out and there is nothing he can say. Jordan Shaw is a star in the FBI. An agent that is going to be Deputy Director or maybe even Director by the end of her career. Therefore he can't say or do anything but stand there and take Jordan's uncomfortably accurate analysis of his motivations. He should have known better than try and put one by a profiler as accomplished as Jordan.
Before Sorenson can say another word Agent Avery sticks his head into the office and says, "Jordan, we've just got word. There's been another murder. The body's at the Central Park Carousel. NYPD are already on the scene."
"OK, thanks Avery. Gather the troops and load them into the Suburbans. I'll be down momentarily and we'll head out. That is if you have nothing more to say Agent Sorenson?" she calls over Sorenson's shoulder before turning back to the now far from smug Agent.
"Ah no, Agent Shaw. Nothing further," Sorenson replies through gritted teeth and then turns on his heels and slinks out of the office.
Jordan watches the receding back of the Agent and shakes her head. Seriously, how transparent can a man be? She wants to solve this case as quickly as possible and having Sorenson along trying to get into Detective Beckett's pants will just get in her way. That and she can't abide that he would even think of using an active investigation for his own personal reasons, again. She's going to have to make sure that man isn't let anywhere near any of her future investigations.
As she stands and shrugs on her trench coat she ponders the detective she is about to meet. It speaks well of Beckett that she didn't get back together with Sorenson even after the guilt she no doubt felt after he was shot. Jordan's profiling skills makes her think that the Detective was probably also still cut up about Sorenson leaving her for that job in Boston. The chauvinist probably suggested at the time that she leave her job with the NYPD and follow him to Boston. She could only see that happening if the couple were truly in love and she definitely didn't get that sense from Sorenson. No, he was just looking for another chance for a fling and the minute a better offer came along he would be out the door.
Jordan hopes that the detective saw through the man just as Jordan has and hopefully that indicates that she will be an asset in catching this killer. The quicker they catch this guy the quicker she can get back home to her family.
A/N: This came to me after recently re-watching 1x9 Little Girl Lost. I've always thought that of all of Beckett's exes that Sorenson was a particular douche for the reasons that I give in this chapter. This is my opinion. Others no doubt have their own and may even think he's not that bad. Also please excuse the small 'Criminal Minds' mention. Guess what was on my TV in the background as I was writing this. It may have also resulted in Jordan being made a Supervisory Special Agent and not just Special Agent as she is referred to in the episode. I just thought someone in her position would be an SSA.
It seems to me that reading some of the many great fics on this site that fans really dislike the various exes of Beckett and Castle and in many cases there are more reasons for this 'hate' than they are just not Beckett or Castle. In Beckett's case a lot of attention is paid to Demming and Josh and they often come out bad in fanfics (for example there is a good fic in progress at the moment by Desperate Derelict called 'Killing Time' where Demming is a really sleazy guy) yet Sorenson seems to be forgotten. Not always but I think that because he was only in season one he sometimes gets overlooked. I therefore came up with this scene and then thought why not do chapters on the other exes, both Beckett's and Castle's, and address some of the reasons I think that they are not liked by fans. Again they will be my opinion and may not be the opinions of others I just thought I'd express them in some scenes.
So there will be more chapters to this but don't expect regular updates. Life, work and my own particular brand of procrastination will mean that there might be a little while before the next chapter. Another delay is that I'm also currently working on a couple of long multi-chapter fics that have me inspired and which I will hopefully have the first chapters for up soon.
I hope you all enjoy this and that you are managing to make it through yet another short hiatus in season 7 and the wait on whether or not our favourite show is going to continue. : )