I promised it in my author's note for Turning Lemons into Lemonade, and here it is: my Headhunters-inspired oneshot. Enjoy?
Disclaimer: That's a good one.
Her coffee is bitter and jaded. Like her. Like him. Like both of them. It's fitting.
Arriving at the precinct before dawn and leaving well after dusk; it's become her routine in these past two weeks. And she takes it out on the boys, she knows. They don't deserve it, and she feels bad about it, but they roll with the punches like champs. They care about her. They pity her, really. She's not sure when she became a woman to be pitied. Maybe she's always been. Kate Beckett: the girl with the dead mother, the weight of the world on her shoulders, a hero complex, and a laundry list of character defects.
She wallows in misery, doesn't even try to pretend like she's fine. It's not like anyone would believe her.
Just two weeks ago, she'd been so ready to tell him everything. Goaded by Lanie, she was prepared to confess her feelings, finally. But it was already too late. She'd already missed her chance.
So he found solace in blondes and Ferraris, and then finally sulked away like a coward to shadow somebody else. They're both such cowards. A break, he said. They'd take a little break from each other. She had too much pride to refuse, to beg for him not to leave. She was too stubborn. And so he's gone now, and she's an emotional wreck, equally livid and distraught.
How dare he?
No, she deserves it. She made him wait all these years. Taking, taking, and never giving. Not enough.
That asshole.
It's all her fault.
"Yo, Beckett. Beckett!"
"Hmm?" She lifts her eyes to Esposito who's motioning to her desk, pointing at something. Oh, her phone. It's ringing. Probably a new case. She didn't realize she was so lost in thought. "Oh. Thanks, Espo." He nods, concern visible in his eyes, and she tries to ignore it, picking up the phone.
"Beckett." Silence meets her on the line, but she can distinctly hear someone breathing into the mouthpiece. "Hello? Who is this?" Nothing, just breathing, and it's seriously creepy.
The boys are watching her now in curiosity, and she beckons them over with a waving hand. Esposito stands up and walks to her desk, while Ryan scoots over on his swivel chair. She hits speakerphone.
"Who is this? What is your business?" Damn it, whoever this is, he's really starting to piss her off. She pounds her fist on the desk. "Answer the question! This better not be a prank phone call."
"Richard Castle," a voice says on the other line, one that distinctly does not belong to her partner, or well, the man who was once her partner and is now…less so. The tone is too deep, too rough. She shares a look with the boys, confusion sweeping.
"Excuse me?"
"You know Richard Castle?"
Uh, yeah, she knows him. At least, she thought she did. But that's not exactly what the man's asking. She answers, hesitantly, "Yes? What about him?"
"I am in possession of Mr. Castle's phone."
Okay. She gives a little sigh of relief. "You found his phone?"
"I have his phone, and this was the first speed dial number to answer my calls." Really? She takes her cell out of her pocket and, low and behold, two missed calls. Whoops. The man speaks again. "You are close to Mr. Castle?"
What kind of question is that? "I can make sure the phone gets back to him if that's what you're asking. Are you calling to return it?" No answer. Dread builds deep in the pit of her stomach. "Is he in trouble? Is something wrong?"
"You could say that. Who is this again?"
What the hell? "Kate Beckett, Detective Kate Beckett! Has he been in some sort of accident? Is he okay?"
"Oh, Detective. Good, good. You won't even have to call the cops. You are the cops." He chuckles, low and dark. "I have an address for you, Detective Beckett. You're going to want to write this down."
She grabs a pen as he rattles off the address, scribbles it down on a pad of paper that Ryan nudges over. "I'm gonna want more answers than that. Why do need this address, Mr…?"
"My name is not relevant. You need the address because I have respect for the dead, and someone is going to have to come pick up the body."
Her blood runs cold. Body. Body? No. No, no, no, no, no-
"So you must be Nikki Heat. I haven't read the books, so I can't say I'm a fan, but I hear talk. It was nothing personal. And, Detective? I'm sorry for your loss."
The goes dead, disconnects and she can't breathe. She can't-
"Beckett," Esposito's fingers are under her arm, and he's practically lifting her to her feet. "Come on, give me your keys. I'm driving." She doesn't argue, can't. Can't do much of anything, really. Her hand finds the keys in the pocket of her jacket, and her teammate snatches them from limp fingers.
Ryan calls to the Latino detective who's herding her to the elevator with a hand on her shoulder. "Esposito! I'll check with Gates and call for back up. Meet you there." The man's looking almost as shaken as she feels, but he seems to obtain a bit of bravery from his partner's nod in approval.
In the car, Esposito stays tough, stony-faced while she silently falls apart. If only, if only she…
"Javi."
He doesn't look at her, concentrates instead on the street signs. It's hard for him too. It's hard to be the strong one. She knows from experience. "We don't know anything yet, Beckett. We can't know this isn't just some sort of ruse."
His voice is comforting, wards off the panic attack for now. She has to piece herself together. For Castle, for her partner. She can only hope that Esposito is right, and that it is just some kind of subterfuge.
She won't be able to survive otherwise.
When he comes to, his hands are bound behind his back, and he's leaning against a crate. Oh, with a gun to his head. Right.
He looks around slowly. Detective Slaughter is nowhere in sight. Probably ran off to call for back up when he realized they were outnumbered two to five. Well, really, more like one and a half to five. It's not like he could do much to fend off five big, drug-dealing thugs with machine guns.
"Hey!" the man above him barks. "Quit moving around."
He watches as three of the gang members hop into the armored truck after loading their crates from the docking area. They pull away with a screech of tires against the pavement. No license plate. Figures.
"Why are your friends ditching you?" he risks the question to his captor and receives a kick in the side from a steel-toed boot in reply.
The other man-the leader of the gang, Castle presumes-walks over after surveying the area. He nods at his lackey. "All clear, Marco. I made the call. Shoot the writer, and we'll get out of her before the cops show up."
He feels the tip of Marco's gun press into his temple and panics, struggling. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down. Shoot the writer? Why shoot the writer? I'm no threat to you."
"You've seen our location, our vehicle. You know too much. But don't worry. I called your Nikki Heat. Surely she will find your body before the rats get to you."
Oh no, Kate. God, she might not love him, but she doesn't deserve see another person she cared about murdered in cold blood.
He tried to flip the switch, to turn off his love for her with a trip to Vegas and Jacinda and anything else he could think of, but nothing worked. So he had to leave. He needed to time away to get over her. And if he could do some research with another investigator at the same time and learn some new stuff for future novels, why not?
Well, that plan backfired. Everything Slaughter does and says, all the rules he breaks and all the unorthodox methods he uses; it just make him miss Kate more. And now the crazy detective's abandoned him here with Thug One and Thug Two. Yeah, not his best idea, and that's an understatement, but who could have predicted this?
He squeezes his eyes shut, hears the drug dealer slide his finger on the trigger. BANG! One shot goes off and then another. Another. White hot pain scorches across his shoulder, shocks him. God, why the pain? Shouldn't he be dead already? Is he dead? Is this what being dead feels like?
"Shake it off man," someone tells him after a minute or two of gunfire. "Bullet just grazed your shoulder a little." He recognizes that cocky laugh. "Open your eyes, ya big wuss. I already called for an ambulance."
"Ugh, Slaughter?" He peeks up at the detective through eyes squinted in pain. "What happened?"
"I just saved your life; that's what happened," Ethan Slaughter says smugly. "Almost didn't get back in time. Lucky I had my backup semiautomatic in the trunk, huh?" He helps Castle to his feet slowly. "Boy they really bumped you on the head, didn't they? You got a headache?"
"Huh? Uh…" His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. "…not, not really. Just sore, I think."
"Well that's good, at least. Probably don't have a concussion. Now, let me see your shoulder. Come on, man, take off the jacket."
They step around the gore and the bodies as the detective leads him to sit on a nearby crate. Marco lies face flat on the ground, bullet hole through the back of his head. The other man bleeds out of a wound in his abdomen, a trail of blood behind him. Must have been trying to crawl away.
"Is he, uh…is he still alive?"
"Relax, Ricky. He's not going anywhere. Let me have a look at your battle scar, and then I'll go cuff 'im." Slaughter tears the arm of his shirt to get a good view of the glancing wound on his bicep. "See. No biggie. Might need a couple stitches. Ever been shot before?" No, no he hasn't, but he's been close enough more times than he can count. He shakes his head. "Well, now you have firsthand experience! Good for the research, right?"
"Yeah, yeah. Research. Right."
"You know, you're all right, Castle. I kind of like having you around. You all right sitting here until the bus comes?" He just nods. It's easier. "Good. I'll go check on the head honcho. Stay put."
Right, like he's going anywhere.
He hears a vehicle come skidding around the corner, and terror seizes up in him. Did the other gang members come back? Are there even more of them? Car doors slam shut, and shoes hit the pavement. Whoever they are, they're getting close.
"Oh, God," he hears, and he'd know that voice anywhere. "Blood. Espo…"
"Not Castle's. Look."
"Castle!" she yells, her voice drawing near. She comes into his line of view, turns her head and there. She's spotted him. She's holstering her gun, running to him.
"Beckett. Kate." He tries to look as uninjured as possible, straightening his back before she approaches, but she doesn't stop, just keeps running until she's plowing into him, arms around his neck and face buried in his chest. He opens his arms to accommodate her position. "Oh, hey. Um, it's good to see you too. I'm all right. Just a little banged up." He feels something wet slide down the front of his shirt and then his partner whimpers, and is she crying? "Kate?"
She gives a short little sob that vibrates over his throat and just squeezes him tighter. "Castle. Oh, Rick. I thought you…they told me you…"
"They told you I was already dead," he realizes as he says it. "Aw, Beckett, I'm sorry. But I'm fine, see? Besides, you wouldn't have to feel responsible, even if something had happened."
"Feel responsible?" She backs up a few inches to look at him, watery-eyes and fear lingering, but possibly more beautiful than he's ever seen her. Jeez, he's missed her. "You think I'm upset because I was feeling responsible?"
"Well, no. I mean, not just that. I know you care about me, Kate, even though I've kind of been an ass lately." She looks at him incredulously. "What? Did I say something wrong?"
She swallows down tears. "You really don't get it, do you?" And then leans in and…
She's kissing him, long and slow. It takes him a moment or two to react, but then he's kissing her back, disregarding the protesting shouts of his broken heart. But it's worth it. Oh, it's worth it. She tastes exactly like she did on that night in the alley but better. Salty and sweet and so very Kate. She shudders into his mouth, a vestige of her breakdown, and then pulls away.
"What happened to us, Castle? Let me try to fix it. Let us fix it because I don't want to live without you anymore. I can't."
He's confused, bewildered. He was so sure that she…that she couldn't feel the way…he was so certain. Before he can answer her, the ambulance comes wailing in, tailed by Ryan and a few other squad cars.
"Your ride is here," she sniffs, trying to pull herself together before anyone else can see. "I'll help you up?"
They walk together toward the stretcher and the paramedics who assess his injuries, and she holds his hand as he's loaded into the back of the bus, climbs in with him and shushes his objections of 'fine' and 'no need to go to a hospital.'
"Esposito," he remembers suddenly, "Did he help Slaughter, um, get the guy? You know, not the dead one."
"More like introduced him to his fist," she chuckles weakly, "But yeah. I'm sure he took care of things."
"Defending my honor?" The EMTs gave him some drugs for the pain before wrapping his arm, so his head is spinning a little. He can't tell if the noises coming from Kate are giggles or more sniffles. Perhaps a hysterical mix of both.
"Maybe. Teaching that jackass a lesson, at least. He didn't have a scratch on him, Castle. What the hell happened?"
"Mmm." It's getting a little hard to think, and all he wants to do is close his eyes. "I'll tell you later, 'kay? I can't really-can't really concentrate right now." He feels the pressure of her lips on his forehead, probably sticky with sweat and blood. Gross. He wouldn't kiss himself right now if he were her and if she…now his thoughts are just getting jumbled.
"Later," she agrees.
He wakes as they're unloading him from the ambulance. It takes about two more hours for the pain medication to wear off; and in that time, he gets checked into the hospital, sewn up, and discharged with a mild warning about his minor head injury. Not likely a concussion, the doctor had responded when Beckett pressed, just some bruising. He might not want to be left alone, just in case.
"My daughter and mother are out touring Princeton this weekend, but I think I'll be okay alone. I feel fine, really."
"I'll watch him," his partner says decidedly. She won't take any of his arguments.
So now they're in his loft, and she's getting him a glass of water so that he can take his pain medication. She sets the glass down, moves around to sit down across the table from him, and watches as he swallows down the pill. She's waiting for the right opportunity to ask him about the altercation with the gang, he can tell. He puts her out of her misery.
"What do you want to know?"
She fires off questions, and he's ready with the answers.
"I'll kill him," Kate decides, when he finishes his story.
"Who? Ethan? He's really an okay guy. A little rough around the edges, admittedly, and a little self-centered, but once you get to know him-"
"I don't want you shadowing him anymore."
"What? Are you my keeper or something? I don't remember signing my ability to make my own life decisions over to you." Okay, that's a little harsh. She recoils from his snippy remark, and he instantly feels the pangs of guilt. "Sorry. That was uncalled for."
"Yeah it was," she agrees, and they sit in silence for a while until she seemingly can't stand it any longer. "I figured out why you're upset, Castle, while you were drugged up and mumbling about secrets and interrogations." Oh, was he? The pain made the medication wear off fast, but they did give him some good stuff. He still can't remember saying anything like…oh, she's talking again. "I am so sorry, Rick. Please, believe me when I say that I was planning on telling you eventually. I just, I was scared and stupid. No excuse I can give is good enough, and I understand if you need time to learn to trust me again, but now you're just breaking away. And it feels like the 'for good' kind. I guess, I just…what more do you want from me?"
He sighs, withdrawing. "It doesn't matter, Kate. You can't give it to me."
She looks utterly helpless, and the part of him that still undeniably loves her-will always love her-hates to see her exposed like that. In pain. "Why?"
"I can't make you love me!" he shouts in exasperation. "And you can't help it if you don't feel the same way. I just wish…I wish you hadn't been leading me on, Kate. All these years and then today with that kiss. I always thought and hoped that we-we could be. More. I felt foolish. Feel foolish."
"You don't have to make me do anything, Castle. Because I already do love you. So much." He can tell that she can see that he doubts her. She stands up, draws near, practically saunters. "You don't believe me?"
"I can't," he chokes out when she leans over him with a wicked gleam in her eyes.
"How's your head? No headache?" He shakes the said extremity in response. "And your arm? Is it okay?" He nods, can't verbalize anything. Not when she's looking at him like that. Like a predator stalking its prey. "Good."
She all but drags him through his office and into his bedroom, shucking her socks in the doorway. His eyes nearly fall out of his head when she grabs the bottom of her navy turtleneck and tugs it up and over her head, revealing skin. So much skin.
"Kate? What are you…"
Her pants come next, crumpled into a heap with her shirt. And now she's standing there in her underwear in his bedroom. Who is he, really, to protest? But he just can't understand. She's Kate Beckett. She doesn't have meaningless sex like her fictional counterpart. Which means…
"You won't believe me when I tell you, Rick?" She growls, backing him into the side of his mattress. "Well, then I guess you're going to have to let me show you."
I know this isn't how the episode will really go, but a girl can dream right? And after The Limey last night, I think we could all use some sweet imagination. :)
Critiques? Criticisms? Reactions? Leave me a comment below, and let me know. And thanks for reading!