AN:

Before we begin A Series of Moments, I should tell you something. This chapter is in Espo's POV, and is essentially a prologue, despite being titled a chapter. This chapter is also in the past tense. The following chapters will be from a mix of Kate's and Rick's POVs, and will be in the present tense.

So, without further ado...

A Series of Moments
Chapter 1

kbrc

He'd been watching it build up, this tension between the two for years. Espo had sat and watched, mostly. Teasing Castle was part of the bro code and so excluded. He'd seen this thing between them way back when they started working together, and he still remembered those moments. Occasional little things that weren't really much of anything alone, but when you stuck them all on the same time line, each one signalled something much bigger than it normally would.

He remembered giving Castle the folder.

Don't tell her it came from me, he'd said.

Don't hurt her, he'd warned. They were a family, Ryan, he and Kate. The three of them were brothers and sisters and a slight, even the slightest slight, against one was a slight against them all.

I'm just trying to help, Castle said. Espo remembered as plain as day, and when it happened, he swore it was innocent enough. He never pegged it, that act of sincerity from Castle as something that could drive the first wedge between Castle and Beckett.

That summer was unbearable. Castle gone, Beckett pissed to all hell, grumpy, grouchy, annoyed; the whole damn works. Solving a case with conspiracies and aliens was easier than understanding Beckett. Castle may say it jokingly every second poker night that she could turn up to, but that didn't make it any less true.

The next massive thing to happen was that wedding. Castle's old flame. He'd never tell the writer - friendship code prevented that - but Beckett was always real strange whenever he went around.

Of course, Castle had to kiss her. Kyra. He couldn't remember the writer's excuses. He didn't care to. They were irrelevant. What wasn't, in the grander scale things, was Beckett's reaction.

There's a reason films always shoot the reaction of a character. It's because three quarters of the good stuff is in the reaction. Beckett's reaction was typical.

Naturally, it being perfectly obvious to everybody except those two, they buried their heads in the sand and did next to nothing about what was between them.

Then there was that case. The first breakthrough, they called it. Sometimes. Not often. The assassin, the info that Castle had dug up coming to light. It was the turning point, Espo thought. He wasn't the only one.

At some point that they'd all missed, they'd become best friends. Kate and Rick. Castle and Beckett. They'd gone from platonic friendliness to true friendship. He offered up a hundred grand for a chance to help bring her closure. It should've struck him then, Espo mused, looking back on that day. It should have struck him that Castle loved Beckett. That Rick loved Kate.

Dunne came along. That case had been hard for all of them. Hard, dangerous, tiring, difficult. He and Ryan had their own mechanism for that, and for once, Espo was really, truly glad that Castle was there with them the whole way.

He was Beckett's crutch throughout the whole thing. When she was feeling the pressure, feeling the weight of their job bearing down upon her, he was there to pull her out before she collapsed, and bring her back in top form. Espo saw the looks they shared through it. No ordinary looks.

She sought comfort in him, and he sought comfort in her. Sometimes it was too easy for them to forget that she only had her Dad outside the precinct, and even that relationship was strained. And then there was Castle, who was her best friend. He could see it plain as day.

Castle was Beckett's best friend, but Rick… Rick was something more. Rick was whatever Kate wanted him to be. He saved her life, he helped her when she needed it, even if she didn't know it.

That was the system they had. Espo saw it every time something challenging came up. Rick was Kate's support, as much as Ryan's brotherhood was his. When she needed him, he was there. And after the Dunne case, when he needed her, she was there too.

Things, as they always do, got difficult. Demming. Why did Demming have to come along?

When Espo was being honest with himself, he admitted that he was silently rooting for the two of them. He even had a bet in the office pool going.

Why do you think he's staying around? It's not for the books, he'd said to her. Not anymore.

She'd looked at him.

He was right though, he knew he was. She broke up with Demming. And Castle had left with his ex-wife.

If the year before had been unbearable, this summer was enough worse. Beckett was in a funk the whole time. There was no Castle to cheer her up; to support her. For the first time in their partnership, Espo had seen true emotional pain on Kate's face.

It got even better from there. Beckett came out of her shell around Castle, and then hooked up with Josh. That annoyed Espo. There was the friendship code, but nothing trumped the bro code, and Beckett was leading Castle on. That's what it was. It was even more obvious that Castle loved her now than before, especially as the breakthroughs on her mother's case came.

He supported her. And she took that support for granted. Then she'd got shot. And Castle broke down. In the hospital, one memory is most vivid for Espo.

I told her, Castle had said to his mother. Esposito had no doubt in his mind what that was about. Castle had told her, and when Beckett had woken up and claimed to have amnesia, he saw the retreat into her shell again.

At the end of the day, there was nothing he could do, not really. He could just wait. Wait and watch as things played themselves out.

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