Beckett's Perspective: - Summer of Absence
Kate Beckett's mind was as far as possible from the meeting at 1PP. Victoria Gates had noticed this as soon as Beckett greeted her with a faraway look but ignored it as none of the others noticed it which she thought was ironic as the all Precinct captains were present and many high ranking NYPD officers and weren't they supposed to be promoted from Detective at a time but maybe it was more politics involved than skill.
Gates would have surely called her out on her behavior but one of her colleagues was just giving a speech on higher closure rates and 12 Precinct had the best closure rates and even though their method was slightly unorthodox she knew they still followed guidelines as much as any other precinct and also their team coordination and bonding was best she had ever seen so she let her off this one time.
Kate was thinking about the infamous Author and her husband Rick Castle which wasn't a surprise but the details of her thoughts could have shocked anybody who knew her well. Kate had found out two weeks prior to today's date that she was pregnant and though it wasn't planned, after the initial shock wore off, both her and Rick were ecstatic. What she was thinking was not about the baby (that's a lie, if you have a living creature growing inside your body you are always thinking about it but that is just in the background.)But the physical distance between her and the father of the baby who currently was tour of Europe for his upcoming novel "Sizzling Heat". Beckett hated Castle (she still called him that when he annoyed her) at the moment as even though he had tried everything he could to avoid going on this tour without mentioning the obvious reason he still left her after making her promise to not tell anyone yet about the biggest news of her personal life (to be fair that was her idea).
She knew it was the Hormones in her that were making her feel this way but she couldn't help but feel abandoned. This thought unfortunately brought on difficult memories. Though She and Rick (Yeah, its Rick again) never talked about it she was thankful that he forgave her as easily as she did even without knowing that what she did was more for both of their happy future together than anything else.
She heard someone clear their throat beside her and noticed that everyone was getting up and heading out. The meeting was over and she hadn't heard a word they said. She was only grateful that no one had noticed her attention was somewhere else.
She quickly gathered her stuff and moved out of the hall catching the eye of Victoria Gates who had an amused look on her face. Crap, someone had noticed. After that Kate quickly left the building in case someone had some questions for her. The only good news was she didn't have any more meetings today and had finished most of her Paperwork before this one so she could go home and relax.
It was only after she was changed and was sitting on the couch with some cooking show on that her thoughts again turned to that awful summer. It was not the first time she thought of that time but she could just generally brush those memories aside and focus on how they had come since but she just couldn't do that today. Stupid Hormones!