Chinese For Two
I do not own Castle or its characters; I just own these crazy lil stories that pop up in my head.
It was one of those cases. Not just your garden-variety murder of passion, but the murder of an innocent child. A 8 year-old girl raped, beat, and left to die in a dark alley. Kate Beckett could handle to cheating husbands or even the evil twin sibling, but when it came to finding the perverted monster who killed a child she was a woman on a mission and that meant long nights sitting in front of the murder board trying to figure out why this happened. But she didn't do this on her own, Ryan, Esposito and Castle usually stayed with her because they were a team and they were determined to close the case as a team. It seemed like every lead swiftly came to a dead end and all the possible suspects alibied out. Time was not measured in minutes, hours, or days, but rather cups of coffee, pizza boxes, and Chinese food cartons.
It was no secret that the long hours spent at the precinct were putting a strain on her relationship with Josh. Even during a good week they rarely found time to spend together because one or the other was working. Things had changed between them in other ways too. During the summer Kate would talk about all of her cases but as fall approached she seemed to close down and ask Josh more about the hospital hoping to divert attention from herself. They used to have fun, but now it seemed she went as far as leaving late on a Friday evening to "follow up a lead". It made him wonder where her heart lied.
Tonight was different, he wanted to surprise her at the precinct with her favorite take out and hoped to distract her from the emotionally draining case she had thrown herself into. Stepping off the elevator Josh noticed that the bullpen was practically a ghost town and wondered if Kate was even there until he saw her desk light on and her favorite leather jacket hanging on the back of the chair. Venturing further down the hall he saw detectives Ryan and Esposito huddled around a computer studying something on the screen. Shifting his focus from the two detectives over to the famed murder board he saw her. And him. Sitting shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip, holding Chinese food cartons in one hand and chop sticks in the other. Before going any closer he stood quietly in the shadows watching Kate and the famed author use their chop sticks to point something out on the board in between taking a bite of their food. Josh's brow frowned as he watched the two go back and forth trying to build a case with very little evidence. It wasn't romantic, but there seemed to be an element of intimacy on display and no one could penetrate that bubble.
Still in the shadows, Josh let out a sigh and looked up right as the writer reached across Kate and plucked a piece of orange chicken out of her carton. She turned to face him and jabbed his arm as a punishment only to reach into his own carton and steal a piece Mongolian beef. It was at that moment he knew she was gone. Kate Beckett was a moral person and Josh would never believe that she would cheat on him, but he could tell by the way she looked at the writer and they way she grinned while rolling her eyes that their days as a couple were over. With that he quietly turned to walk back down the dark hallway, discarding the bag of take-out in the nearest trashcan and stepped into the elevator.
Hearing the ping noise from down the hall Kate looked over her shoulder to see who would have stopped by so late but the doors closed before she could catch a glimpse of the mystery person disappearing into the night.
"Hey, Beckett…What are you looking at?" Castle asked poking her in the arm.
"Oh, I thought I heard the elevator, but it must have been something else." She shrugged.
"Geeze, you owe me another bite of your chicken." Castle smirked reaching across her body just close enough for her to take in the sweet smell of his cologne that always made her smile.