Beckett can't breathe and her stomach is rolling. From the second he'd looked at her from around the corner of Will's hospital room, not with a smirk but with a measure of sympathy, she's known. There has to be a reason he's looking at her like this. Her stomach swirls and the smile drops from her face before he's even begun to explain.
"It's about your mother."
She doesn't hear much after that; his words assault her ears, bringing anything but their usual solace.
Stabbing. Not random. My expert. Three other stabbings. Targeted murder.
They're all just words and they all blur together; Kate's vision goes hazy too, and she thinks she could be swaying, but she'll be damned if she's going to pass out in front of Castle. Not here. Not now.
She pushes past him; he looks for a second like he's going to stop her; he reaches his hand out ready to restrain her. The idea of his hands on her has Kate almost doubling over with the need to vomit, and she ducks out of his way and rounds the corner, turning into the first bathroom she finds.
Beckett empties the contents of her stomach. So much for the sprinkles. She sinks down onto the floor in the stall; outside the ladies' room she can hear him knocking on the door, calling her name. She groans in frustration as her phone vibrates and she scowls, throwing it against the opposite wall.
It's ineffective though, and it continues to buzz on the floor, just out of reach. Sighing, Kate stands up. She's half tempted to stand on the damn thing and shut it up for good, but she reigns herself in before she can really lose control. She settles for holding the power button down, stopping the vibration. The screen dulls, then flicks off, and she lets herself breathe, assessing the situation.
Castle's stopped knocking, but he's still outside; she's sure of it. For that matter, Will's down the hall, no doubt expecting her to come back any moment. She's not interested in seeing either of them. She's not interested in seeing anyone. She wants to go home, lock the door, shut herself in her apartment and- what? What then? Kate exits the stall and stalks to the sink. She hasn't shed a tear but in spite of that her eyes are red and puffy, and her lip gloss is everywhere; smudged from where she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. Ugh. She splashes water on her face, takes a bunch of paper towel from the dispenser and wipes off the last of the traces of the lip gloss, oddly relieved that no tears means no streaked mascara. If she has to walk out of here, past Castle, at least she'll do it with her head held high.
She washes her hands, taking her time. She's stalling, lathering up more than she needs to, and letting the warm water rinse the suds. She pulls more paper from the dispenser, dries her hands, tosses the paper in the trash, and casts a final appraising look in the mirror; she's looked better- has she ever- but she thinks she can walk past him. And if he tries to follow her? Well, she doesn't work out for nothing. Her shock is being replaced by anger, and she's angry enough at the moment to consider throwing a punch if necessary.
She squeezes the bridge of her nose between her fingertips, forcing herself to take deep, slow, calming breaths; she's not going to punch Castle. She's not. She's going to walk past him, head held high, and-
Kate opens the bathroom door. Huh. Okay. Apparently, she's going to exit the bathroom and walk straight down an empty hall, because he's not there anymore.
The unsteady clacking of her heels on the linoleum floor echoes in her head. She presses the elevator button over and over until it arrives, takes the elevator down to street level in a daze. She stumbles to the exit and hears the swoosh of the automatic doors, hailing a cab as soon as she reaches the street.
Castle knocks several times, calls her name a few times, and then he has the bright idea of phoning her; yeah, he thinks to himself. Great plan. Because dialing a woman in a bathroom; a woman who specifically went in to the bathroom to avoid you? Probably not going to work. The phone rings out the first time, and then goes straight to voicemail the second; if she hasn't switched her cell off, she's probably called Will, or worse; Esposito and Ryan. He looks around nervously, almost expecting to see the detectives marching up, ready to escort him out of here.
The hallway is empty, and Castle leans back against the wall, his head in his hands. Way to go, Rick, he thinks angrily. These have been some of the best months of his life and he just had to go way too far and screw the whole thing up. "Shit." He curses aloud, and slams his hand against the wall, looking around guiltily after the fact. Nobody's watching, so he doesn't have to pretend he's knocking for Kate to come out when it's really just a frustrated demonstration of how angry he is with himself.
He walks away.
He walks down the hall; slow, measured steps, and when he gets to the elevator he turns with a heavy heart; hoping (irrationally, he knows) that Kate will come out of the bathroom, that she'll walk toward him. That she'll want to talk.
She won't. He knows that. By the time he makes it to the street he's unable to see properly, hailing a cab blindly, and wiping at his eyes, embarrassed, as he gives the cab driver his address.
How could he have done this? Beckett slams the lock shut behind her and dumps her wallet and phone on the counter, stomping through the small apartment to her bedroom where she unholsters her piece and tucks it roughly into the drawer that doubles as a gun safe.
She casts her eyes around the room and sees Storm Fall mocking her from her nightstand. She groans in frustration, takes the book, and pushes it under the dirty laundry in her hamper, rolling her eyes at herself even as she does so. Way to make a problem disappear, she thinks to herself, angrily fumbling with the buttons on her sweater and pulling her clothes off. Damn. Suddenly the casual gray shirt is as suffocating as the silence of the apartment is deafening; she can only hear Castle's voice in her head, their conversations from the past few days suddenly on repeat.
"And if I were a better cop, I would have."
"…You pushed for it, not because it's your job, but because you care. Most people come up against a wall, they give up. Not you. You don't let go. You don't back down. That's what makes you extraordinary."
Kate feels anything but extraordinary now; she feels empty, brittle.
"When I gave you that little speech last night, I really didn't mean for you to go all "Beautiful Mind" on me."
Yeah. Well. If he expects her to keep her grip on reality after she told him what her mother's case does to her- and at that thought, Beckett curses aloud. He'd started. Obviously, he'd already started looking into this. She wonders when it all began; when he decided to consult with his own expert. As soon as she'd told him? She'd just begun to trust him- and she curses again. What had she been thinking, to even begin to consider him a friend?
Stabbing. Not random. My expert. Three other stabbings. Targeted murder.
Beckett turns and opens the door to her bathroom, turning the shower faucet on; hard. Steam billows through the bathroom and she steps into the spray, letting the hot needles of water pound her back as long as she can stand it before turning the heat down to a more manageable temperature and sinking into the bath.
"It's about your mother."
She doesn't know how long she's been slumped there, but the heat is tapering off. Beckett stands again and turns the faucet back on, reaching behind her for the shower gel to soap up. She's covered her arms and legs in vanilla suds and she trails the sponge across her chest, startling when her fingertips catch on her necklace. She'd forgotten she was even wearing it. Unbidden, tears fall from her eyes as the gravity of Castle's betrayal hits her again. Her mom's murder. He'd been digging around; the one thing he'd promised not to do. She wants to throw up again but she chokes out a cry, manages to keep herself from retching. As the water runs cold, the tears come.
A/N: This multi chapter is a lot less planned out that Overlap was, but it has something in common- titles (chapter and story) are borrowed again from Ani DiFranco songs. Next chapter shouldn't be far away. Many thanks to Ky for the beta, and Kylie for the read through and hints :)