Chapter 1: Every Time I See You
This chapter is inspired by a Luke Bryan song, you may not like country music but, hey, if you like it or want to give it a try then go listen to it.
(This entire chapter is in 3rd person POV)
He sat down in his chair next to the wooden desk and handed her the usual coffee she received from him every morning.
She gave him a slight smile, "Thanks, Castle."
She looked back down at her papers, bringing her eyebrows together. Beckett had been looking through the papers all week, constantly trying to crack the Melvin Anderson case.
He was a younger white male who was in the Bronx Zoo when they found him.
He had blood all over his shirt, tears in his jeans, and his lips were stitched together.
There was no way that someone could stitch someone's lips together and be so good at it that Lanie couldn't find strong evidence.
They did, however, find a waiter who says Anderson walked into the diner at eleven-thirty the night he was murdered.
She continued wandering her eyes over the paper, putting the pieces together like a puzzle but, it wasn't working.
Castle was staring at her.
Admiring the beautiful features of her face and the small pout on her lips as he noticed she couldn't fit the pieces together.
He chuckled and shook his head.
Beckett snapped out of her thoughts and immediately gave him a famous what's-so-funny look. "Why are you laughing, Castle?"
He didn't notice that he disrupted her train of thought but he gave a smile, "Nothing. Just something I thought about…dealing with the case." So the last part wasn't a total lie.
She stared at him blankly, waiting for him to give a theory as to who could've killed Anderson.
His eyebrows rose slightly. He didn't exactly know what to say so, he made a wild theory up quickly.
"Uh, well..." he cleared his throat, "You've seen the Saw movies. What if that's what happened? Obviously not with Jigsaw but, a sick serial killer who found people killing each other amusing because of something bad that they did. So," she cut him off before he could continue.
"Castle, that sounds extremely irration—" he lifted his hand up to stop her from continuing.
"Beckett, instead of cutting me off, let me finish because we both know that some of my theories can help us out.
She nodded and sighed "Okay, continue."
He gave a small smile and continued going on about his theory. "Well, like I was saying, what if...what if there's more to it than what we're seeing? What if he's targeting a group of people? Are there any other who have died the way he did? Maybe, just maybe, Lanie missed something. A engraving or something. We should go check with her! You know, she might have new evidence to get a lead!"
She shook her head, "Castle, first off, slow down with the questions. Second, I'm positive that there is no other evidence that would link us to a serial killer who acts like 'Jigsaw'." She made sure to put her own air quotation marks to emphasize the stupidity of his theory.
"Beckett!" Esposito jogged over to them with Ryan on his heels.
She turned her head to look up at them with a quizzical look. "Esposito, Ryan, what's up? Did you get a lead?"
"We might, the person we have might know something. We should bring him in for questioning. The photo is pretty suspicious." Ryan handed her the file showing a picture of a young black kid around the age of twenty two. He was standing next to the entrance of the zoo before Melvin was killed. Esposito pointed at the picture, "It was around three o'clock in the morning when he was just standing there. Lanie says that Melvin was probably killed an hour earlier but, nobody saw anyone go into that zoo yet, he was the only one there."
"Well, what are we sitting around for? Do you know his name? Espo, please tell me you have something, anything, as to who this kid is."
"That's the problem. We don't know who he is. We're trying to figure that out right now but, it'll take a couple hours." Ryan nodded and went back to his desk, trying to find anything that would tell them who the man was.
"Well, Castle, let's get going. We're going around the Bronx to see if anyone knows who he might be." Beckett got up, grabbed her coffee and walked towards the elevator.
He sat still staring at her walk away with a smile plastered on his lips. Esposito stared at him with a grin. "Aye, Castle I hope you know we can all see you, too much on your mind?" Ryan started chuckling and shook his head.
Castle got up quickly, with an awkward chuckle and jogged to catch up with Beckett waiting for the elevator.
"You know, I think I've seen him around. He was walking around here this morning. I was walking my dog and out of nowhere I see this kid run past me with a duffle bag in his hands. He bumped into me and when he turned to look at me, he was pretty shaken up. He apologized and kept running. He looked suspicious but after that my dog here," she point down at the brown and white bulldog, "started chasing after a squirrel so, I forgot about the kid and tried calling my dog down. That's all that I really know." She gave a look of disappointment; she knew she couldn't help with anything else.
"Thank you for your help, Ms. Miller. If you see any strange activity or see him around, please call." Beckett handed her a card and started walking off.
"Maybe we should check around the zoo, see if anyone there saw him?" Castle grabbed the photo and stopped Beckett, "Why would he make it so easy on us? There is no way he would kill someone and leave us here with a photo at hand. Maybe he's not our killer but, knows something important?" Beckett stared up at him, shook her head and kept walking.
"Castle, we need to find him regardless. Maybe he's thought he'd get away with it. He could in fact be our killer and the only way we'll find out is if we find him. Let's go."
Ryan's eyes shot up to Esposito sitting at his desk "Espo, I think I found something. We just got something for Beckett. The kid that was at the zoo, his name is Marcus Bryan. He works at a bodega five miles away from the crime scene. We have a match. Call Beckett and tell her." Esposito grabbed his cell phone out and texted Beckett.
Esposito: We have a match! Marcus Bryan. He works at the bodega five miles away from the crime scene. Go check it out.
Beckett looked down at the phone that was vibrating in her coat pocket and read it. "We found a match to our suspect. His name is Marcus Bryan." She turned the car around swiftly and drove off towards the bodega.
Castle looked at Beckett as they reached a stop light. His eyes wandered, taking in every inch of her face. From the arch of her eyebrows to the way her lips poked out slightly trying to figure out how she was going to find this suspect. God, she was beautiful. He couldn't bring himself to stop himself from staring at her dumbfounded. She started to hide a smile and slowly turned her head to glance over at him. He tore his eyes from her face and quickly looked straight ahead. He hoped she wouldn't have noticed the way he was staring at her less than thirty seconds ago.
"Castle, do I have something on my face or were you just captivated by my beauty?" She teased.
His eyes shot a look towards her and gave an warm smile, "No." He then realized that maybe that wasn't the best reply because he seemed like he just said she wasn't beautiful. "I mean, you're beautiful, Kate. I was just, uh, you know, thinking about that one dude….with that thing." He was making himself sound so stupid and he felt like everything he said would either cause her to kick him out of the car for staring at her every second or get himself shot.
"Castle, calm down, I was just messing with you." She parked the car and gave him a signature eye roll. "Anyway, we're here." She unbuckled her seatbelt and climbed out of the car, heading into the bodega to question some people that worked there.
"Boss, I am so sorry I'm late but," Marcus came in during Beckett asking Marcus' boss a couple questions as to where he might've been. Marcus looked up and saw Castle tap Beckett's shoulder. His eyes went wide, filled with fear. He turned around and bolted towards the door; knocking down an older male in the process. Castle ran after him without even thinking about how Beckett would react. Marcus turned the corner and continued running while knocking trash bins over. He was trying to slow Castle down, who was right on his heels now. Marcus ran across the street dodging the speeding cars. Castle followed, almost getting hit by a yellow mustang going ten miles over the speed limit. The cops should really crack down on that over here. Marcus was still heading down the road but was soon heading into an alley. Castle slid across the top of a pickup truck and chased after him like something you'd see is 'Die Hard'. Marcus reached a dead end, turned around and lifted his fist up as Castle slowed down to stop him. "Stop!" Marcus ran up to Castle faster than an Olympic runner and swung his arm to hit Castle in the jaw. Castle bent down to avoid the impact that the punch would've done. Beckett ran up to them just as Castle went back up.
"NYPD, stop where you are and get on the ground now!" She raised her gun to point towards the now terrified young man. Just before she walked towards him getting on the ground, he swung once more, causing Castle to stumble back slightly holding his now bleeding nose. Marcus got on the ground allowing Beckett to handcuff him and haul him off to Esposito and Ryan, who were right next to their cop cruisers.
"Fuck," Castle held his nose between his hands and mumbled something under his breath. Beckett handed Marcus over to Esposito making sure to tell him that she wanted him to be questioned and that she wanted to be the one to do it. Esposito nodded and took Marcus towards the car telling him his rights.
"Come on, Castle." She grabbed his arm and dragged him to the car. Once they got in she buckled her seatbelt and started driving. "What the hell were you thinking, Castle?" She gave him a death glare from the corner of her eye and clutched onto the wheel hard enough to make her knuckles turn white.
"Kate..." She then again gave him a death glare, cut a corner and sped up. "I stopped him from getting away! The least you could do is thank me!"
"Castle, you are not a cop! You're shadowing me. You're my responsibility and you could've got hurt. What then, Castle?"
He could see that she was beyond irate so he kept quiet and held his nose while trying to stop the bleeding. The blood from his nose was on his dress shirt already. Beckett turned one last corner and stopped the car. She dragged him out of the car once more and went up to her apartment. Her silence was starting to worry him as she opened the door to her apartment and he followed. She placed her keys down on the counter and went into the kitchen to grab a rag. He took off his coat and tried to see if the bleeding had stopped in the mirror. She strolled over to him slowly with the rag in her hands. He turned to look at her with a hand over his still bleeding nose.
"Put your hand down." She grabbed his wrist and Castle let his arms fall down to his side. She cupped his face with one hand as she rubbed the blood stained on his face off gently. She grabbed the tissue that was in her pocket and torn a piece off to stick in his nose. That would cause the bleeding to stop. She continued rubbing the blood off the areas around his mouth. He stared at her face while she continued to rub the rest of the blood from his chin. Her eyes wandered up to stare into his ocean blue eyes. Her hand slowly left his face and went limp around his neck.
"Rick, please don't do that anymore. You know that if he would've had a gun that he would've shot you. Let me do my job. You can't keep getting into trouble." He nodded understandingly and noticed the amount of emotion in her voice. Without thinking his hand took her hand from his neck and intertwined their hands. She looked down at them questioning what he was doing. When she looked up his face was a mere inch away from hers. She could smell the sweet and tangy cologne come off of him and hit her nostrils. He brushed his lips on hers and began to kiss her. Kate let her walls down for a minute, and let her arms drop the rag, and tangle her fingers in his hair; caressing the back of his neck. His tongue ran across her bottom lip asking for an entrance. She moaned softly and allowed his tongue to wrestle with her own. He pulled her into him, their bodies matched perfectly.
Beckett wanted to continue going but she knew that if she continued to kiss him she'd end up hurting him. She pulled back as fast as she could, turned and walked into the kitchen while running her hands through her hair. She sighed and leaned against the counter. Rick walked up to her and she placed a hand on his chest, keeping him at an arm distance away. He looked into her eyes, searching for anything he could find. "Kate?" She looked down at his chest, not daring to glance up at his face. If she saw the look in her eyes she'd lose all control and break down. She didn't need to do that, especially not with Richard Castle in front of her.
"Castle, we need to get back down to the precinct." She again walked off to the door with her keys in her hand. Castle sighed and closed the door before she could open it and head down the stairs.
"Kate, stop this. You can't keep ignoring this. Look at what just happened! You're seriously going to act like it never happened? Beckett, don't do this to me." He continued to stare at her even though she wouldn't meet his eyes. She was avoiding him and he knew the answers to his question. She was never going to let her walls down for him to get in.
She finally looked into his eyes and the hurt was smacked clear on his face. His arm left the door and dangled at his side. She turned, opened the door and walked out, making sure to allow him to step out into the hall and lock her door. "Marcus Bryan needs to be questioned. We don't have time to talk about this." Castle watched her walk away. He couldn't believe that she had just been shoving her tongue down his throat and now she was leaving him in the hall with his heart thumping in his chest, not only because that was beyond the best kiss he's ever had but, because she just ripped his heart out, stomped on it and left him there feeling lost. "I love you." He whispered as she walked down the steps. He may have not said it to her face but, could you blame him? Her mixed signals were making him self-conscious and he didn't want to see how she'd react to those three words when she couldn't even talk to him about a kiss they just shared while she helped him out with his nose bleed. He wants to be able to hold himself together but he can't help but come unglued every time he sees Katherine Beckett.
If you happened to give the song I shared with you before you read this chapter a chance, you'd notice the last line I used was similar to the song. Teehee. Please enjoy and leave your comments/reviews if you think that I should continue with this story. & Stay tuned, this is a Castle/Beckett story. c:
