Famed mystery novelist Richard Castle felt distinctly like a stalker.
It's research. He scolded himself fiercely, though silently. RESEARCH.
After all, Detective Nikki Heat had to have friends, right? And he was a male writer, not a female cop; ergo, this research was necessary for literary purposes. He needed to be able to write casual, everyday moments between Nikki and her girlfriends. By hiding here, just outside of the open door to the morgue in the 12th precinct, he was merely doing his job. This was a strictly professional situation that had absolutely nothing to do with the evening before.
Stalker.
Castle sidled closer to the edge of the morgue door, inching himself along with his hands pressed flat against the wall behind him. He held his breath and sucked in his stomach, as if that would make his presence less obvious if someone should chance to walk by. Or if one Kate Beckett decided to poke her head out the door.
Now that was a scary thought.
"Well come on girl!" Lanie's voice was mix of incredulous surprise and amusement. Though Castle couldn't see her, he had no trouble picking out her distinctive, rather loud voice. "Everyone else caught onto it from day one. The two of you were the only ones stupid enough not to." She thoroughly emphasized the word "stupid." There was a brief scuffling noise. "Scalpel, please."
There was a sigh from the other occupant of the room, and the clink of glass and metal as the requested scalpel was presumably found and handed to the M.E.
"Now, I want details." Lanie requested.
Kate mumbled something vague.
Castle could actually sense the ME glaring at the detective in the following moments of silence. She sighed heavily, "Uh-uh. That is not gonna work with me. You cannot make out with Richard Castle and then pretend it never happened. Who started it?"
"I don't know."
"Who ended it?"
"I… don't know," she admitted.
"How long did it last?"
"I don't know!"
"Girl, you're crazy."
"Look, I don't really remember. One second I was looking at him at the next we were kissing and the next we were looking at each other again."
"One second?" scorn dripped from Lanie's voice.
"Not exactly."
"Well what happened after your 'spontaneous' kissing and special moment of gazing into each other's eyes?"
"I hate you Lanie."
"You love me."
There was a long pause. Castle held his breath in the silence, terrified that one of them would hear him, find him, kill him, and then dissect him on the metal table around which they were currently standing.
"Well?" Lanie demanded.
"Ikissedhimagain," Kate muttered rapidly.
"You what?"
"You heard me!" she snapped. "And then, I backed away and left really fast."
"Kate, I just don't understand—" Lanie began after several moments of silence, only to be cut off by a low, quick flurry of words that Castle couldn't catch from his position.
"Oh, please," Lanie retorted in response to Beckett's mumbled interruption, "professional be hanged. You're just scared."
"Am not." Beckett raised her voice slightly in irritation, just loud enough for Castle to hear. He silently rejoiced.
"Gimme a forceps, will you?" Lanie broke in.
Castle cursed the interruption. Come on come on come on! He willed them to continue their previous conversation.
There was the sound of drawers opening and closing.
"Where are they?" Kate asked after a moment.
"Uh… Actually I don't know. Come here and hold this scalpel."
"Ew, Lanie, no! There's blood all over it. Just tell me where the forceps are and I'll get them."
"I don't know. I've gotta go find them. Grab a glove and hold this for me!"
"Fi-ine." Castle heard the snap of a rubber glove.
The next moment, he saw Lanie walk across the room and into his line of vision. She flung open a couple cabinets, rummaged around in them for a few moments, then shut them. Castle slowly began to tiptoe backwards, but he wasn't fast enough. Lanie, turning back to search a couple drawers, spotted him and froze. They stared at each other.
Don't kill me Don't kill me Don't kill me! Castle's eyes begged.
"Hurry up, Lanie," Kate called, "This is nasty."
A tiny smile appeared on the ME's face and she casually finished searching the drawer. "Ah, here it is." And she walked back out of his line of vision.
Castle allowed himself to breathe. What should he do now? Accept the lifeline Lanie had thrown him and flee? Or, maybe she was allowing him to stay and listen…
There was a minute of silence after that, broken only by a regular, steady tapping of which Castle was unable to determine the source. Never a particularly patient individual, he was about ready to peer around the edge of the door when Lanie spoke up.
"Will you stop that? I can't concentrate with you pacing all over the place."
The tapping stopped, then started up again as Beckett crossed the room back to Lanie.
"Well, what am I supposed to do?" she asked, adding a distinctively whiny, un-Beckett like pitch to her voice.
"Do I have to spell things out for you?" Lanie replied, "Go. For. It. You never know; it might work out."
"Yeah, and it might not," her voice was flat.
"But it might."
"Lanie—"
"I know, I know—"
"Lanie!" Beckett re-interrupted. "If I came to you to say that I was considering jumping off a cliff, you'd suggest that I try it for a change of scenery."
"You're just scared."
There was silence.
Castle decided that Lanie secretly wanted him to stay.
"Mm-hmm," Lanie continued, "That's what I thought."
Beckett murmured something in reply, too soft for Castle to understand.
"Like I already said, professionalism's a moot point. You can pretend that it was a mistake, but we both know you're not that great of an actor." She paused for emphasis. "You're good, yeah, but not that good." There was a loud clang and a muttered curse from Lanie. "Will you rinse this off for me?" she inquired.
"Maybe next time you shouldn't wave around knives to make your point," Beckett suggested wryly "And stop talking so loudly. You never know who might come down." A moment later, Castle could hear water running.
"Don't try to change the subject on me. You've got a thing for Castle. We all know it. Need I remind you about last June…?" she trailed off delicately.
"Thank you, Lanie," she responded dryly.
"You're welcome," she replied in kind. "Have you talked to him about last night?"
"I haven't talked to him at all."
"What, you've just ignored him?"
"Uh… yeah. What was I supposed to do?"
"You are so messed up that it's not even funny."
Kate snorted lightly, "Thank you, Lanie."
"Do you like him?" she asked abruptly.
"Lanie!"
"Do you?" Lanie demanded.
She let out a long breath. "Yeah, a lot."
"And do you love him?" she asked deliberately.
There was a painfully long pause that followed.
"Well, there you go," said Lanie.
"I guess."
Castle's heart thudded painfully in his chest. Had she shook her head?
"Would you look at that?" Lanie's tone changed and he assumed that Kate slipped over to view whatever Lanie was pointing to on her most recent corpse.
"Let's document that," Kate suggested, relieved at the topic change, "I'll just grab the camera and—"
"No, I got it!" Lanie practically yelped as Kate walked across the room.
Kate turned in confusion back to her friend, and in the process spotted Castle hiding behind the door, who again was too slow for his own good. She didn't move, but stared at him in shock and a hint of betrayal.
Lanie was already trying to smooth over the situation. "Look, Kate, you know I love you and only want you to be happy," she said, slowly sliding off her gloves. "Come on in, Castle."
He entered sheepishly and Kate turned furiously on Lanie. "You knew he was there!"
Lanie took a deep breath, poised to argue, then let it out. "Yes," she admitted.
Kate spun on her heel and walked out the door.
"Well now you've done it," muttered Lanie, snapping her gloves.
"Me?" Castle asked indignantly, in a pitch a full octave higher than his normal range.
"Yes you."
"Did she nod or shake her head?" he demanded, referring to Kate's response to the question Lanie had asked only moments before.
"What makes you think I'm gonna tell you, Writer-Boy?" she asked, hands on her hips.
"Because I've been wondering for about two years now and it just isn't fair to make me wait any longer," he replied passionately.
She sighed and glared. "Fine. She nodded."
"Yessss!" Castle hissed with a victory fist pump. He did a little dance right there in the morgue.
"Okay," Lanie said in a no-nonsense tone, "One, you do not do some little tap dance with a dead body only ten feet away. Show some respect."
Castle assumed a sober facial expression.
"And two, go fix it with Kate. Or I'll fix you," she threatened.
He stepped forward, threw his arms around her for a moment, then fled out the door to find Beckett, yelling his thanks as he went. Lanie was left to stare in astonishment.
She took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. "Men," she muttered before turning and slipping on a new pair of gloves in order to continue her autopsy.
Esposito and Ryan came down later to get her report.
"Where's Kate?" she asked.
The guys looked at each other and shrugged. "Dunno," Esposito replied, "Told us 'bout a hour ago that she had a family emergency and had to go. Funny enough, Castle came rushing upstairs a minute later, spouted off some family emergency story and left too." He looked perplexed.
Lanie couldn't help the smile that slid onto her lips. "Oh, I'm sure it will all work out."
"How d'you know?" asked Ryan suspiciously.
"Oh, call it a woman's intuition," she smirked. "Now, about your victim here…"