What Makes a Partner
Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own Castle. Forgot to mention that before. Oops!
A/N: So, this is still the same little ficlet, but a nice soul helped me clean it up, even after I thought I had it covered and so clearly did not. (Thanks, mojor - you rock!) If you put this little oneshot on alert, sorry, don't get excited. But, it's much cleaner to read now, so if you wanted to give it a second look, that's cool.
Also, yes the surprise guest at the end of the chapter shares a name with a character who has appeared on the show before. Not intended, not the same guy, not going to change. Because there can totally be two men with that name in NYC, right? And it might make for a funny story one day. Never know.
It was immediately clear to Kate Beckett that Captain Victoria Gates was waisting no time using the moment to try to oust Castle from her department.
"All I'm saying Detective is that this may be an opportunity for you to step back and consider the implications of your choices. I think that it might be in your best interest to take a look at the impact that choosing to play these games with Castle is having upon your career."
"My career," Beckett returned flatly.
Gates leveled a gaze at her. "You are going to make me tell you, aren't you? Because look, I will. You are a damn decent cop, Beckett. You can expect to move up fairly easily with a little focus. I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't point this out to you. You need to consider the consequences of letting yourself be held back for someone who frankly doesn't need to be here."
It wasn't that the Captain was being cruel, exactly. She actually sounded pretty genuine. And for Kate that made it all the worse, really. She tore her eyes from Gates and stood restlessly. Her eyes flicked to the closed office door into the nearly empty bullpen beyond. This woman doesn't know her, she reminds herself tightly. "Respectfully, sir?"
Gates raised one eyebrow. "Could I stop you?" she asked dryly.
Beckett refused the bait, she was used to being baited - but that was her partner's fault.
"I think you seriously overestimate my concerns about the future of my career."
"No, Detective, I think you underestimate its importance." Gates fired back.
"Well, that's certainly true, Captain when you consider that I really couldn't give a damn," the younger woman offered dryly.
Gates raised both eyebrows at this, but said nothing, perhaps sensing that Beckett was only just beginning her attack.
"Most everybody here came from somewhere else, Vice, IA whatever. Some of them pass through here for the thrill, or because it looks good on the jacket on the way up. Not me. I'm a Homicide. Screw the career, all I've ever cared about was the job.
I went Criminal Justice in college straight into the academy, and I did whatever I had to get right where I am. Frankly, those extra six weeks might bother you, but I never noticed. Because I don't care, all I ever wanted was to stand right out there," She gestured beyond the closed door to her bullpen, her board. Her partner.
She watched as the Captain processed her words, then realized that if she had any hope of pressing Castle's case, she needed to press the advantage of the older woman's cooperative silence while she still had it.
"I get that you have your issues with Castle's presence here, Sir. I do. Because it deviates from the standard, it complicates already complicated situations. It feels like all it can be is an inconvenience at best, and a conflict at worst. I get it."
Kate watched Gates' reaction with her detective's eye, noting that it wasn't strictly needed to register the naked surprise on her face. But, Kate didn't dare give the other woman a chance to stop her momentum, so she carried on, instead.
"I understand how crazy this thing with me and Castle probably seems coming from the outside, Captain. And honestly, the only thing I can say is that it used to seem insane to me too. All I wanted those first few months was for Castle to get what he wanted and get the hell out. I worried about getting distracted, I worried about my team, and I spent half my day annoyed."
She watched the expression play across the other woman's face. "I'm sure it isn't going to get me anywhere, but your ability to see this situation clearer three years ago than you seem to be able to today is part of what worries me," the Captain offered.
Beckett sighed, pushing her hair back with both hands. And it won't get me anywhere to tell you how much dealing with this stonewall of yours feels like dealing with Early Castle, she thought, but bit it back. Though Castle himself would be amused with how Kate saw her boss's inability to simply accept him positively as an ironic counterpoint to his own inability to take no for an answer, this would get her nowhere with Gates.
"I've had the luxury of experience in this instance," she said finally.
Gates' stare was incredulous. "Enlighten me, Detective."
Kate almost wanted to say forget it, but she suspected that the statement was more of an order than a request. She tired to find some way to explain to this woman who knew neither of them, who hadn't been a part of the events as they unfolded, how she had come to respect Richard Castle.
"Our first case, I think I almost killed Castle twice just to shut him up. And I did arrest him once. Because we had our suspect, and he wouldn't shut up, kept insisting that the details were wrong and the story wasn't right. But we had the connections, the evidence, everything we needed for a clean hand of to the DA. I signed off, the Captain too. Except that Castle was right. And if there is one thing that rankles me more than the fact that a killer damn near got away on my watch is the fact that we all damn near put a damaged but innocent kid in prison because it seemed right at the time. But it was Castle's refusal to accept the easy answer that got it done. And then he kept doing it."
A half dozen other moments flash through her mind: Angela Candela's bunny, seeing the discrepancies in a spy story for the game they were, finding the identity of Haley Blue's killer in the singer's last song, finding the trail to a dirty bomb, hell a phone call that saved her from another bomb.
Gate's posture shifted. "Surely, Detective, you have enough confidence in your team to believe that you would have gotten the right suspect in those cases without the assistance of Mr. Castle?"
Oh for the love of - "I'll be the first to tell you I believe that my team is the best on the job, Sir. No question, no hesitation. But I'd also say that Castle is a part of that team. And while the boys and I might have pulled out a win on a lot of those cases, but even then, I'd have to say that there would be a much higher body count on the balance sheet." She took the risk of turning her back in favor of pacing the tight space in front of the desk. What was it going to take to make the woman understand?
"And, you don't have a problem with that fact?" Gates asked.
Kate stopped mid stride and whipped around again. "You know what? I do have a problem with that. I have a problem with cops that get so caught up in the work, or the career -" the word held more challenge than she intended, more than was probably wise, "to see the truth when it doesn't easily conform to SOP. More than that, I hate how easy it has been for me to be one of those cops. But, do I have a problem with Castle stepping remind us to think outside the box? No, I don't." She sucked in a breath, and moved forward, finally seeing the moment she had been waiting for from the beginning.
"Captain, all of us, we come to this for a reason. Some for a sense of justice, or service, or a sense of tradition - this time when she paused for a beat, she was waiting for the raised eyebrow and incline of the head she expected from Gates. "For others regrettably, it's about nothing more than a paycheck or power over others."
Thoughts of Raglen, McAllister and even Ryker caused bile to rise in her throat but she pushed it down. Forward, Kate. For your partner, and for yourself.
"But Castle? He comes here, keeps pushing for the truth - and for what? As you say, he's not a cop. There's no money in it for him, no loyalty to the badge. He doesn't need the attention, it gives him no authority over others, nothing. And it might seem like a game from where you sit, Sir, but I've been with him long enough, close to the edge with him often enough to know he would never do that to his family for kicks."
For a long moment, neither of them says anything. Kate feels her stomach roll, feels like she's waiting for the hammer to drop.
Finally, Gates looks up from above steepled fingers. "I'll admit, Mr. Castle has proven himself useful on occasion. I've read the write ups on past cases, and even seen it a time or two myself." But? Kate thinks, knowing better than to feel relief. "However, I also know that Castle has a knack for trouble. What about Scott Dunn, or for that matter Jerry Tyson?"
It took all her training in combative interrogation skills to keep her jaw from dropping. Hell, Dunn was easy enough, she'd gone through that twice with Castle at time, and for god sake, Jerry Tyson?
"I'm assuming your asking about Dunn because of Castle's books, but considering that the man had done this before and gotten away clear, I'd say any opportunity to get the guy of the street was a good one. And I'd add that this department AND the FBI closed the case and nearly lost him, but for the fact that Castle caught on to a discrepancy we missed." And saved my life in the process.
"And Tyson was walking. We had a confession, and it was locked up. Ryan was there with them and he didn't see what Castle saw. Losing Tyson was bad, but losing him without ever realizing he was 3XK? How would that not have been worse?"
Gates' eyes flicked from Kate's down to her desk and then back again. "And Dick Coonan?"
This time it was more the physical location of the Captain's desk that held Katherine Beckett in check, any and every level of training she possessed overwhelmed by the burn of rage within her blood.
"Dick Coonan tried to walk out of this station at the barrel of a gun," she all but growled. "He nearly got away with at least five separate murders, and the fact that that was my own damn fault will never, never be lost on me. But, whatever personal regrets I may have, the fact remains: that the son of a bitch raised his gun on my partner," the two last words came out with near venomous conviction, "and I took my shot knowing exactly what I was doing. He'll never take another life, and I'm going to call that a victory."
As the words left her mouth in a hot rush, Kate realized the truth of them for the first time. If she had it to do over again, she'd still have fired that shot. He'd tried to kill her partner, and she'd put him down without a thought. She'd do it again, answers or no answers.
She let that realization wash over her as her anger cooled, blinking slowly as the energy in the room settled again.
"If there is anything you'd care to add, Detective, consider this your opportunity," Gates said quietly by way of dismissal. Her face was impassive.
Kate was done. She turned her back, and put her hand on the door. Then she turned back. "I'm not here to move up, I'm here to catch killers, help families move on, if I can. I'm here for the truth. So is Castle. He's here because he helps, and because he gives a damn. He's a member of my team, and my partner. Not because it's his job, but because he's earned that position. Sir." Without so much as a care as to her Captain's reaction, Kate walked out of the woman's office.
"Castle!" Beckett called his name sharply in the wide expanse of the bullpen, and was gratified when his head appeared through the open break room doorway. "Is it safe?" he asked.
"Far as I'm concerned," she returned tiredly.
Castle made his way to her desk as she stood there, setting her desk in order. "Are you really okay," he asked softly, once he was close enough for his whispered question to carry to her ears. "That seemed long, and tense."
She glanced at her board, "Yeah," she said, drawing the word out on a breath. "I'm fine, Castle, I'm good."
She turned back to the desk, gathering the last of her things and shutting down her computer.
"Kate," Castle began again.
She looked up. "Hmm?"
"Kate, you know that if it was ever a problem, if I -"
Oh, God. Not him too. "Castle," she stopped him with a hand on his arm. "Shut up, okay?" She belied the harshness of the words with a raise of her eyebrows and a sight smile.
His gaze was uneasy, searching. "Okay," he said finally.
She grabbed her keys, let him help her with her coat, hoping it would settle his mind on the issue. "Come on, Partner. Coffee is on me tonight." She smiles as he follows a step behind on the way to the elevator in silent assent. Backing her up.
The older woman felt her lips quirk upward involuntary when she heard Beckett's call to the writer - her partner - ring through the air. She shifted the papers on the desk into the proper files, then slipped them into the top left drawer, sparing a glance to the picture of the uniformed officer that lay at the bottom.
There was a tap at her doorframe, and she looked up to find the same man, older, uniform long gone standing in her doorway. "Hey, ready to roll out?" he asked, as if it were perfectly normal for him to be standing there.
She sat back in her chair and leveled a glare in his direction. "Have we not discussed my feelings about you picking me up at work?"
He stepped into the room, utterly nonplussed. "Sure, sure. But at this hour? Come on. And I was in the neighborhood, wanted to take you to dinner."
She closed her eyes and sighed. "Lateness of the hour aside, there were people here," she points out wearily.
"Wow, it is true what they say. I leave you alone, and you turn into the Ice Queen."
When she opened her eyes he was grinning at her. "Yeah, I noticed. Was that the dynamic duo I passed at the elevator?"
She had to forcibly restrain herself from rolling her eyes at his eagerly whispered question. "Really?" she asked dryly, knowing that the question is useless. He's a ridiculous man. She nods once.
He eyed her speculatively. "And?"
She wants to tell him the same thing that she always does, that it's out of the question. Insane. Because it is...but she thinks back to the look in Kate Beckett's eyes as she made her impassioned defense of her unusual partner. The flash in her eyes as she spoke of shooting her mother's killer to save his life. She lifted her eyes to the man who has perched himself on the edge of the desk she still feels uneasy claiming as her own. And she conceded.
"Fine," she said. "And that makes dinner your choice. But, do make your best effort not to gloat, it's unbecoming, and promises to have an adverse effect on your evening."
He held up his hands in acquiescence, but she could still see the sparkle in his dark eyes. She shook her head as they walked out of the office and toward the elevator. Yes, Victoria herself had had a partner or two in her time on the force.
And it seemed, Mayor or no, she was going to find herself as stuck with Castle and Beckett as she was with Marcus Gates.