Flunitrazepam
a co-authored story by seilleanmor and chezchuckles
Thirteen days of non-stop case. Three murdered women and a possible serial killer, so of course the FBI is threatening to take it away from her. When Gates found out they were waiting on the toxicology reports from the lab, she sent Beckett's team home.
Finally - finally - home.
Kate tilts her neck to one side to feel that delicious pop all the way down her spine, and as she comes into her kitchen, she sees Castle's little smirk.
Kate's not in the mood to handle that smirk very well and he followed her home tonight without asking.
Even though they haven't asked in months now. Even though she wants him with her. She just doesn't want. . .all of him.
That's unkind.
But the truth right now.
"What?" she sighs, trying not to, but there anyway.
"No, nothing," he laughs. Still smirking.
She reminds herself that there are nights she thinks that's attractive, adorable even. Nights when she hasn't worked thirteen days in a row with no end in sight. Nights when he gives her that come here look and she does.
But that's not tonight.
"What?" she insists.
And then his eyes rake her body, not at all subtle (when has he ever?), and his smirk deepens. Not a smile, not happiness, just amusement at her - laughing at her. Whatever it is.
"I've just noticed you wear those a lot."
As she heads right past him for the fridge, she glances down at the clothes she changed into the moment she kicked her shoes off. Leggings and an oversized shirt, as always. "So?"
She comes close enough for him to pluck at the black, stretchy material over her knee; he's laughing. "Kinda baggy there, Beckett."
She looks at where he's caught her, his fingers distending the shape of her leggings but he's right. The knees are grey from wear and she knows the butt sags too, but she wears a shirt over most of that and really. . .really, Castle. But she raises her eyes and realizes that there's a flicker of concern at the back of his humor, a sense that he's trying for her and she's not responding the way he wishes.
"It's comfortable," she shrugs. "And it doesn't help when certain people stretch them out trying to get them off me."
He grins back, apparently appreciating her attempt. "All my fault. Of course, if you weren't wearing them every single night, they'd look a little less urchin."
"Urchin?" she echoes, trying, so desperately, to not let it get to her. It's a joke; he's teasing her. "I've worked thirteen days in a row. I think I deserve to be comfortable when I'm at home."
"You wear them at my home too," he laughs. He's still tugging on those - admittedly - seen better days leggings.
"You should feel honored then," she snaps back. Her control is thread-like; she can see the snap coming, but she can't seem to avoid it.
"Honored by ratty clothes?" His grin is indulgent, like he thinks she's cute, and that is just. . .
Sometimes, she could strangle him.
"Castle," she bites out. "I wear what I want to wear. I'm sorry the real me doesn't meet your standards of silk and lace teddies. You want me to go back to trying too hard and never letting my guard down?"
"Whoa, no," he says immediately, holding up both hands. "You wear anything and I'm - well, I'd rather it be nothing, if you know what I mean, but anything you feel comfortable with, that is fine by me. Especially when you're at my place."
Uh-huh. She pulls away from him and yanks open the fridge door, lets the cool air wash over her cheeks, dry her sweat. She searches for something but doesn't know what.
"Actually, that brings up an interesting point that I've. . .wanted to talk about."
"What?" she asks, irritated by the emptiness of the fridge, the lack of real. . .substance. What she gets for spending nearly two months at his place while he had a broken knee, waiting on him hand and foot (sort of), and living in his loft like she'd never leave.
Of course she left. This is her apartment.
"Since you left. . ." he starts.
She turns back around to look at him. He's serious right now. That blank grey of his eyes, the slackness to face when he's trying to get it right - it's all there.
"I miss you. I want - I was thinking it was just so easy having you at the loft and I liked it. A lot. I like having you there. And I thought you took to it fairly naturally, Beckett."
"Took to what?" she blurts out.
He stops, a flash of panic. He must realize, somehow, that this isn't a good time, that she's beyond tired and he's already put his foot in it and she's not feeling charitable towards him right now. But it's too late, isn't it? He's opened the lid on it.
But he ducks his head and plows on. "Living together. I want you to move in with me."
Kate sighs and shuts the fridge door. "I don't want to have this discussion right now."
The blankness is replaced with his melodrama - hurt and pouting and probably something of a tease in there to mask the hurt - and just like that, he's transformed into the man who used to annoy her endlessly only four years ago. The man who won't let it rest, who whines and picks and pushes and can't shut up.
Not tonight. She just. . .not tonight.
"Rick," she says quietly and lifts an eyebrow. The use of his first name catches something in him and the persona fades from his eyes. Thank goodness.
"Is it so wrong to want you?" he mutters, shaking his head. Not looking at her.
That hits its mark and she presses her palms flat to the counter, searches for what to say. Her chest is tight and the words are gone.
"Never mind," he says quickly. "Like you said, thirteen days on. I'll just. . ."
If he says leave, she will truly, absolutely fall apart. Thirteen days. She just wants to go to bed and sleep and not think.
". . .just change my clothes. We'll go to bed. Okay?"
She nods at that, taking a tight breath in.
Crisis averted.
XXX
Castle slides between the sheets while Kate's in the bathroom, his clothes folded and safely in his drawer. And yeah, okay, he loves his drawer. He does.
He just loves Kate more.
He wants her with him. He wants her to come home with him every day. To him. And he didn't realize how much he meant it until he asked her. Until she said no and he had to choke back his desperation, let it drop.
She gets in next to him, carefully not letting their skins brush. When she settles, the great expanse of sheets between them guts him. He wants to cross it, reach her, tug her in to him and kiss her until she can find a smile again.
Instead, he turns out the bedside light.
There's a beat of silence, heavy in the darkness. Kate shifts in the bed and the sheet pulls up, his foot suddenly exposed. He curls his toes against the cold and they crack and then Kate's muttering something, grumbling.
Right. Okay, huh, so she kinda. . . hates him. Apparently. It's the lack of sleep. Not-
She hates him just right now. Not in general.
He should shut up. He should roll onto his side (face away from her, Rick) and let her sleep and not ask again. Not tonight. Only, he doesn't think she understands. How fiercely he burns with it, a desperate consuming need to have her.
The sheets are cool and lovely under his fingers, fresh like water as he slides his hand over to her. Gorgeous, so-soft skin brushing his knuckles and a hiss of air through her teeth.
"I meant it, you know. I want you. With me."
She groans and rolls to face him, trapping his hand underneath herself. If he shifts his fingers just a little he can-
Mm. Yeah.
"Castle, I am sleeping. Please, please, shut up."
Damn. Okay. So clearly this is not the right time to have this conversation with her. He knows that. But he's always been this way. Once he gets an idea in his head he just can't let it go. Hell, he manipulated his way into being allowed to shadow her and then he poked and prodded and pushed for four years until she gave up.
In? Yeah. Gave in.
Sometimes he does wonder. . .will she ever be able to forgive him? Marching into her life and breaking her open because he wanted to know. Because the stupid, reckless little boy in him thought he could understand.
He treated it like a game. But it's not. Not anymore.
It's not a game to him. He wants her.
XXX
He's already up when she gets out of bed, the hollowed out place in her mattress carved by the mass of his body is cool to the touch. Kate has to take a second to breathe past the guilt.
She could have been nicer about it, she knows that. She was just so tired. So tired, and so not ready to deal with it.
As she comes into the kitchen she runs a hand through her hair, fingers snagging in the knot of her curls. She starts to untangle herself, stops dead at the sound of laughter.
Her head snaps up and it's him, of course it's him, sitting at her counter smirking at her. "You okay?"
"I thought you left."
The smile runs down his face at that, pooling at his feet. He slides off the barstool and comes for her, clutching at her biceps and touching his forehead to hers, their noses brushing too.
"No. Why would I? That sort of goes against everything I'm saying, doesn't it?"
Kate lifts her chin to press a soft and fleeting kiss to his mouth, hoping he can taste the apology. She's had sleep, now. There's no more grit behind her eyelids, no more bone-deep exhaustion. She can love him.
"How long have you been up?"
He shrugs, his eyelids shuttering. Closing her out. "A while. You want coffee?"
He drops his hands and takes a step back from her, already turning back to the counter before she can question him.
A while. She's the one who gets up early. He doesn't do this. Now that she's looking, she catches the weariness in his shoulders, how he doesn't quite seem able to hold himself up without a palm pressed flat to the counter.
Castle sways on his feet, his body close to crumbling, and Kate rounds the island, goes to him. He startles when she slides her arms around his waist and rests her temple at his shoulder blade, her nose nuzzling into the fabric of his shirt so she can draw the musky, sleep-heavy smell of him into her lungs.
"You okay?"
He turns in the cradle of her arms and kisses the top of her head, his mouth dusting at the pale line of her scalp. "Yeah. I'm sorry. I know you were tired. I should have left you alone."
"No. Not alone. I didn't want to be alone, Rick."
He clutches at her, his fingers burning at her ribcage as he brings her in close. "I don't want you to be alone either. That's my point."
"Castle." She can't do this now. It's already too much and he's barely started. One night's sleep was not enough to prepare her to face a crusade.
"Okay. Okay. I'm done for now."
"I'm gonna go get ready for work. I think we can match the drugs in their system to a online pharmacy. Are you coming?"
He drops his hands and takes a step back, coming up against the counter. There's something desperate in his eyes and Kate swallows hard, moves away. She had him cornered and it didn't feel good.
She's been. . .a bully. Yeah. Making him wait, making him do what she wants, all the damn time. It's not fair, but she doesn't know how to stop.
"No. I have stuff to do. I'll call you later."
Kate nods and catches her lip between her teeth, faltering a moment before she goes to the bathroom. And even though she's the one who moved and Castle is this great unwavering figure in her kitchen, it feels like he's the one leaving.
Stuff?
XXX
Castle peruses the wine in his cabinet, stroking the labels with his finger as he tries to decide on the best one. Not just for the flavor and the explosion of taste on the tongue, but also the memories - what dirty thing she did to him when they drank the 1997 burgundy, or that time when they sipped Sauturne all night and told secrets and he fell off the couch and she laughed at him because only he got drunk on the most expensive white she'd ever had and a girl could get used to this, Castle.
So sly, so adorably mussed, so willing.
He's looking for that Kate Beckett again, hoping to call to mind some her fondness for him and not just how good he is at annoying her.
Last night, she said, Please shut up.
And he can take a hint, he really can. She doesn't want to talk about those big relationship steps when she's in the middle of a grinding case that won't let up; she doesn't want to have to bring any more energy to bear on them when she can barely get a full night's sleep.
Three raped and murdered women, the city's press won't let up about catching the guy, the insinuations that this is a serial killer - yeah. It makes sense; he gets it. He really does. Timing is everything.
So he won't make her talk about moving in again. He's been really very good at holding it all in, going at her pace, letting her take the lead. He can do this. He won't say a word.
But he thinks if he just doesn't say a word, and doesn't say it loudly, maybe, just maybe that silence will speak for him too. He's spent years trying to make his actions shout for him, and they both should be used to it by now.
Right?
So he has this plan.
He has this plan and he thinks it will work.
XXX
He's found the wine, he's picked the menu; now, he just needs to scout a few ideal locations. He's at his own loft and still deliberating his best move when she texts him - the first time all morning, and it makes him smile to think she misses him.
Or is at least annoyed enough by his absence to come looking, figuratively speaking.
Too busy for lunch?
He's tempted. He really wants to. But just as she delayed gratification during his Epic Birthday Mystery of 2013, he can do the same.
He texts her back: Can't. I'm stuck here.
It's strangely satisfying to think of her narrowing her eyes at her phone when she gets it, of the way she'll start clicking over in her mind all the ways this morning didn't quite go right, of the razor's edge she'll walk all day, half thinking of him and not knowing quite what's in his head.
He wants this to be good.
He wants dinner to knock her socks off and at the same time, to charmingly woo her; he wants her to realize that every day with him - and him having every day with her - is so much better than coming home alone.
XXX
He has it all ready - well, except for dinner itself. He's going to actually cook it for her instead of ordering or getting it catered because there's something about putting in the work and the time and the effort that calls to him.
Like when she made them dinner in the Hamptons and the first bite of that succulent chicken let him know that he did not at all know.
He had no idea.
He wants her to think that tonight.
But when he goes to pay at the grocery store, his card won't swipe and he has to use another one. He holds up the line with it and feels that stupid flush of embarrassment that he felt back when his card returned with the line insufficient funds and he was trying to do something meaningful for Kyra and it all went wrong instead.
Castle takes the subway back to his loft with the groceries in cloth bags, hoists them onto his shoulders when the car slows at his station. He gets off and narrowly avoids running into a woman trying to hop on, makes his apologies feeling like he just sidestepped some major catastrophe.
And then Kate texts him and he nearly drops a bag trying to get to his phone and it reads, I'm not in the mood for games, Castle. Where are you?
He growls at the day, the whole day starting to unravel and it's not even one o'clock yet, and he has to put everything down on the sidewalk to text her back.
In transit. Picking up some stuff. Why? You miss me?
And she doesn't text back.
Darn it.
Okay, okay; it's okay. Long-term goal here. Keep that in mind. She did it to him on his birthday; he can do it too.
When he manages to get back to his loft in one piece, his heart is beating hard and he's starting to rethink some of the plan. Inviting her over for dinner here, even if he has switched it up some - that's still on his turf, isn't it?
Hm.
That won't do.
Maybe at her place?
Does she even have-
Yeah, yeah, actually. That might be better.
Instead of ambushing her, instead of calling her over to his place and maybe having to whine and plead to get her here, he'll go to her. A pleasant surprise.
Hopefully.
Okay, yeah. Better idea. Have it at her place.
Castle glances around his loft and feels his heart sink a little.
There's just so much to move over there. . .
But no, he can do this. He can.
Still.
He feels like his plan is already jinxed.
XXX
It's a battle just to get in the damn door,her key sticking so tight she has to brace a foot against the bottom of the wood and yank. Just another item on her litany of things wrong with today.
And no. No, it's not psychosomatic. That chant – wrong door wrong door wrong door – is nonsense. The stupid, nine year old part of her brain sticking its tongue out at her. The Castle part.
Her apartment feels cold as she moves through it, stale air curling around her frame like fog. Kate tries to shake it off, the discordant feeling of not belonging. This is her place, her home, of course she belongs here.
It's just the parasitic seed of doubt that Castle sowed in her brain. Nothing more.
She uses the bathroom, changes into an oversized shirt and stands in her underwear staring into the murky depths of her drawer. Her leggings are at the top of the pile and she tugs them out, holds them up by the waistband to inspect the knees.
He has a point. They're threadbare in places, thin like gossamer. But comforting in their familiarity. She falters, starts to grab shorts instead and then huffs a sigh, sits at the end of her bed to pull on the leggings. There's a hair tie already around her wrist; she captures her curls, knots them at her nape, and then she can eat.
Kate stops in front of the refrigerator and unlocks her phone, sighing again at the goofy picture of her idiot partner that's somehow become her background. Again. She should text him for dinner.
She hasn't yet replied to his message asking if she misses him.
Her phone hits the counter harder than she expects and she grits her teeth against the noise. Too much. She braces a hip against the island and unlocks her phone again, her hair falling like a shield to hide the screen from the glare of the evening sun.
There's music in her library she's never seen before. Chart hits and bubbling pop and power ballads and-
Oh. Oh, Castle.
Coltrane. She hits play and moves back to the refrigerator, her body pulsing with rejuvenation. The music floods her bloodstream and she grins, sways with it. If Castle were here, he'd press up behind her, follow the winding pulse of her body with his palms.
But he's not, and she's free to move.
Even so, it's sweet of him. And there's nothing against letting him know that. She goes back for her phone again, knocking her knee against the corner of the island. It's a sharp, static pain that shoots down to her toes and makes them curl up against the hardwood, feeling it all the way up in her hip too.
She hovers a moment with their conversation open, a wash of guilt at the time that's elapsed since he last messaged her. And that's good, it helps her string together an apology that means something.
My Favorite Things: this album, dancing in the kitchen. You.
There's more, of course. So much in the whole of him that she could deconstruct, a ream of things she likes about him. Loves. But this is enough for now.
The fridge calls to her again, its steady hum in harmony with the growl of her stomach. She tugs open the door, bracing herself for the Styrofoam temple, and instead finds the shelves swollen with food.
Okay. So, that's. . .not what she was expecting. There's wine chilling, something that looks like it could be tiramisu nestled next to her butter.
He's giving her space, then. Apparently. And also dinner, which is sweet. Saying that, though, there's no actual meal there, only ingredients.
So that means what? Ask me to come over, Kate. I'll cook for you.
She won't do it. She needs this night apart to affirm all the reasons she's saying no, putting him off. Running. She's a little ashamed of that part, if not also fiercely indignant. It can hardly be a surprise to him that she balked from the directness of his question.
I want you to move in with me.
So easy for him to ask these things of her. So easy for her to back away with her palms raised in defeat and shelve the discussion.
She'll cook for herself, eat dinner alone at the counter with Coltrane swelling in the empty spaces of her apartment, and then read until she falls asleep. She might call him later. Say thank you for the food, at least.
Only-
He hasn't replied to her text.
XXX
Fine.
So they're having a fight, huh?
Nice of him to tell her.
She thumbs off her phone and then decides, spitefully, to really turn it off. For good. All night. Show him. She's not texting and calling him all night if he's not going to answer. It smacks of desperation.
She throws the phone on her bed and stalks back to the kitchen, but suddenly the dinner she started and thought, somewhere in the back of her mind, to share with him when she cajoled him over, looks unappealing and entirely too much work for one person.
And she's sad, and that's crazy, but there it is. She's sad that he won't answer her out of some misguided attempt to give her space or show her how it really feels to be alone or whatever it is he thinks he's doing. It hurts, Castle.
But, no. She can survive his attempts at teaching her a lesson. Or, let's be charitable here Beckett, his half-assed attempt at giving her what he thinks she wants: time to be alone.
So she will be alone.
Kate snaps the oven off and opens the door, but she doesn't even feel like cleaning it up. She can't even manage that; she'll do it tomorrow. She puts everything back in the fridge and promises herself to at least eat the salad later, after a long hot bath and a book and the wine. She'll talke the wine.
Beckett grabs the bottle and a glass and heads back for her bedroom.
She wishes if they were having a fight, they could at least have it together.
XXX
When she wakes up alone in the bleary early morning light, Beckett rolls over and stares at her alarm clock until it makes sense.
It takes a long time.
Oh no. No. Seven in the morning? How did she oversleep?
Her phone. She turned her phone off and forgot to turn it back on for the alarm, for the precinct, oh no. No. So not good.
Beckett scrambles out of bed and flies toward the bathroom, snags her phone from the little table beside her tub where the last of the wine still sits. She powers it up - she didn't even charge it last night - and she waits impatiently in the chill shivering off the tiles.
She flips on the shower even as she watches it start up, but it's possible she won't even get a shower if-
Oh no.
Five missed calls. All those alerts popping up on her phone, and the messages, and then-
Something stings in her throat when she sees they're all from the 12th. Every single one. Stupid, really stupid, but she hoped he would call. At least message, and ask, see how her night went or why she hasn't shown up at work, but his silence must extend to this morning as well.
She calls in to the 12th even as the water runs hot and when Esposito picks up, Beckett dodges out of the bathroom so she can hear.
"Guys, I am so sorry," she says, because she knows she's on speaker. "I turned off my phone and forgot to turn it back on. Is Gates livid?"
"She's quietly fuming, which I think is the worst kind," Ryan answers. "But I bet you and Castle had fuuuuun last night."
"Shut up," she mutters. "Got anything I should've been at?"
"Nope. No more dead girls. But the warrant on the club came in. We already served it, told Gates you'd meet us there. . .and then you didn't."
"Okay, all right. I'm so screwed," she mutters, grabbing clothes out of her wardrobe. "I'll be there in twenty."
She'll just have to go as she is. At least she had a bath last night.
XXX
Beckett is just running out the front of her apartment building when she steps in it, wrinkling her nose as she realizes it's brown and mushy and-
Oh. Just chocolate. Still. Ew.
She scrapes her boot off on the curb, taking the time even though she doesn't have it, and surveys the mess that is her front sidewalk. Looks like a wild animal got the trash in the alley, scattering paper and scraps across the block.
And strangely - flowers. Little unopened buds of roses, carnations, and her favorite-
It reminds her of Castle's book and the coyote that Heat sees at the beginning of her case. Like an omen. Beckett glances around and wonders if she'll see one now too, if it's a sign from his Universe.
But the animal is long gone with the sunrise, and she has to get going.
XXX
"What makes you think I was even with Castle?" She can't help shooting at Ryan on her way past his desk, her coat still on. And then she's pissed at herself for not putting the case first, and pissed at him for distracting her.
Ryan grins and leans back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head. Espo wheels out from his desk to join his partner, the two of them staring her down.
"You're always with Castle."
Huh. Okay, so there's some truth to that. But even so, Javier, is that smirk really necessary?
"Plus, his phone was off too." Ryan shrugs a shoulder at her, straightening up as he sees Gates stride towards them. Kate nods at her captain and holds the woman's steely gaze.
The captain nods back, a tilt to her eyebrows and the seam of her mouth doing enough to show her displeasure that she doesn't even have to verbally reprimand Beckett.
"Good to see you decided to join us, Detective."
"Yes, Sir. Sorry. My phone. . .died."
Of course, Gates knows about Kate and Castle, but that doesn't mean Beckett's going to admit that she turned her damn phone off because they were having a fight.
If they were. She really doesn't know.
"Don't let it happen again."
Gates is gone before Kate can respond, and then the boys are laughing so loud Kate has to turn and hush them. "Guys. Come on."
She unbuttons her coat and shrugs it off, concern sloshing in the pit of her stomach. She figured Castle was just ignoring her, but the boys too?
He always has his phone with him. Especially lately, since. . .Alexis. Since Paris. She still can't think of it in terms of his daughter being kidnapped. It seems too much, a mostly over thing that only rears its head when Alexis shows up at the loft in the middle of the night still trembling from a nightmare and Kate makes tea while Rick cradles his daughter on the couch.
In the morning, the sun seems to be a healing balm for her and she goes back to the dorm like nothing happened. But she'll call her dad to reassure him, reassure herself. So Castle always has his phone on.
"Ryan, did you say you tried Castle's phone too?"
"Yeah, a bunch of times. He's not picking up. You really wore him out, huh?"
She sighs at that, not even meaning it really. It just seems like a better option than letting the boys see the first notes of real worry start crawling up her spine. "No, I- we weren't together. I haven't seen him since yesterday morning."
"Oh. He writing? Can't believe he wants to miss a moment of this case." Espo folds his arms and leans back in the chair and really, it's ridiculous how exposed she feels.
She wants to go sit behind her own desk, but then she'd have to shout the details of her and Castle's estrangement (if that's even what this is) across the whole bullpen. So instead she'll have to stand here and face Esposito.
"I don't know. I haven't spoken to him since lunch yesterday."
Ryan whistles through his teeth and shakes his head at that, even as he's pulling his phone from his pocket to text Jenny, no doubt. "Are you two fighting?"
"Jeez, guys. No. I texted him and he didn't text me back. He probably just got sucked in to a chapter and didn't notice the time passing."
Only, he always gets tugged out of that place when she calls. Her ringtone, the flash of her smile on his screen has always been able to capture his attention.
Both the boys shrug at her and she rolls her eyes at them, goes to sit at her desk. They've left her the paperwork to go over from the club and she shoots them a look. She deserves it though. She should have been there when they served the warrant.
And so should have Castle. She cannot think of a good reason why he wouldn't answer his phone. So, a bad reason then.
Either they're fighting, for real, and he's ignoring her. Or-
Something's wrong.
XXX
"Okay, so his battery must be dead because I'm not getting GPS," Ryan says. He winces as he puts down the receiver, hanging up.
Kate chews her bottom lip and wonders what next. She won't call Alexis, not after everything, not when the young woman came to the loft just this weekend, staying in her old room and needing the comfort of home.
She's also not quite ready to ask a judge for a warrant for his phone records, see where he was last, what cell towers he pinged off of. That's. . .extreme, right?
"I'll call Martha," she says finally, knitting her eyebrows together as she pulls her phone towards her.
Esposito comes towards them at a fast clip, but it's not an I've got something stride. He gets to his desk and glances to Ryan for an update, but they're both shaking their heads at each other.
"Nothing?" she says inanely.
"LT hasn't seen him since you did. No one else either."
"He didn't call LT and ask-"
"No, Beckett," Espo says quickly. "But the toxicology reports matched to an internet provider of wholesale Rohypnol-"
"Yeah, can you run that down? We'll need a warrant for their customers." She avoids Esposito's incredulous look and finishes dialing Martha, turning her back to Gates's office window where she can see narrowed eyes and pursed lips. The case is important, yes, these drugged and raped and murdered girls, but she just has to do this first.
"Katherine, darling, how are you?"
"I'm okay. Martha, have you heard from Rick?"
"Oh, sometime yesterday. Why?"
"Just - when yesterday?" she asks breathlessly, hoping.
"Hm, around dinner? No, wait. My pre-dinner cocktail with the team. So that was probably around five or so. Why?"
"I haven't - I'm not sure if he's talking to me," she says instead.
"Oh, he said you had a fight about something and he was trying to make it up to you. Did he not?"
"He. . .he left me dinner in my fridge," she admits. Has to. She needs more. "What did he say to you, Martha?"
"Oh, darling, you know I don't like to get into the middle of these things. You two should work it out. But I'll call Richard and get him to talk to you."
"No, actually. Martha. I can't find him. I mean - the boys and I-"
"The police can't find him?" she gasps.
"I'm - I guess that's what I'm saying," she sighs. "Martha, can you just tell me what he told you? What his plans were last night."
"Oh, oh, honey, I really. . .I'm sure he's just. . .he said he was going to make it up to you and do it big. A grand gesture-"
Kate feels it like a punch, a grand gesture, and she doesn't know what he might have meant by that except to ask her again, to ask her again, and she can't do that right now. She can't think about the whole life-changing event.
"I don't know any more than that, darling. He was going to try to sweet talk you, I'm sure."
Kate hunches her shoulders. "But he didn't - he left dinner at my place," she says quickly. "He wasn't there. He didn't even call me back."
"Oh? No, I don't think that was the plan. He was going to make dinner for you. Leaving you alone to stew? That is entirely not Richard's style."
Kate sits stunned at her desk, a little irrational surge of hope in her chest even though really it doesn't help, knowing that Castle wanted to be there last night, knowing that he didn't intend to leave her alone.
She never does well alone anymore.
"Kate?" she hears and realizes Martha is calling her name.
"Sorry, yes. I'm here."
"Well, but, darling, you may be there, but where is my son?"
She opens her mouth but she doesn't have an answer.
XXX
Okay. Okay.
Right, she's-
Kate runs a trembling hand through her hair, presses two fingers to the seam of her mouth to keep back the panic that wants to come gushing out. She's a detective, for goodness sake. If anyone can find him, it's her.
"Guys. His mom doesn't know where he is either."
Ryan and Espo wheel their chairs over to her desk, a slice of levity that has her cracking a smile. It'll be okay. They'll find him, and she'll yell at him for scaring her and then take him home and spend the night affirming that he's here. It's going to be fine.
She can't let herself believe otherwise.
"Have you asked Alexis?" Ryan asks, his notebook already pulled out of his pocket. The boys have her back, and it helps. It really does.
"No. No, I don't want to scare her. She's still. . .recovering."
They both nod at her, Espo trying for that uncomfortable-looking smile he has, the one he gave her all of that summer when Castle didn't call, didn't come back.
But that's not what this is. It's not the same. He'll come back.
"So, last known location is my apartment. I'll go back there, see if there's anything that can help us."
She's already standing up, shrugging her coat back on. And even as she directs the boys, asks Ryan to go over traffic cam footage outside her apartment, she's imagining him, her cheekbone warm with the muscle memory of his palm cradling her face, sliding down to ease her hair out from under her collar.
Both her boys are already standing, slipping into formation at her back. Espo nods at her and she manages a half smile.
He knows, they both do, how much it means to have their support in this. How good it is that they love Castle too.
They'll find him. They've solved harder cases than this.
XXX
Kate takes the cruiser to her apartment, managing to grab a space that opens up right outside. She glances up at the building, craning her neck to see out of the windshield, and she wonders what it looks like to Castle.
Does it loom, impenetrable like a fortress? Like her walls, that awful, awful year. Or does it rise like a beacon of hope? She hopes it's the latter, hopes that now his body hums with the same deep-seated sense of belonging that her own does when she goes to the loft.
Which, yes, she does more and more often nowadays. Sneaking in to curl up in his bed, his body like a mountain range under the sheets. Coming home to him even when he's sleeping. Sometimes even if he's not there himself. She'll lounge on the couch with a book, and it's not even that she's waiting for him to come home.
She's just living. In the loft.
Okay, so she sees his point. But still, she needs the safety net her apartment provides. She's never actually lived with anyone before. Not really. Not for good. And if she moves into the loft. . .she's staying. She doesn't intend to move back out.
Doesn't matter right now. She has to find him first, before they can hash this out.
Beckett climbs out of the car and hesitates in the street out front, a gust of wind ripping through the canyon of the city blocks and plastering a scrap of paper to her leg.
Gross. That trash from this morning is still there, then. She half hoped that someone would have cleared it up by now. She snags the napkin that still clings to her with two fingers, sees more like it fluttering nearby. And-
Is that a whole tablecloth?
And there are a lot more flowers, too.
Bizarre. This city is just bizarre.
The boys join her; Ryan has already plucked a purple-tinted carnation from the sidewalk even as he starts taking notes. She doesn't see, exactly, what he's writing about. There's nothing here. Maybe inside will be better.
Kate pockets the napkin, sighing at herself the whole time. It's not a clue. Only, it might be. It might turn out to be important. She wishes Castle were here to spin some ridiculous theory, a way it would make sense.
Of course, if he were here she wouldn't need a theory. But even so. She misses him.
She's about to punch in the code for the main door when she stops, something in the corner of her field of vision making her falter. At the edge of the sidewalk, snarled half inside a storm drain-
A tie. And, shit, she knows that tie.
She remembers knotting it around his neck on his birthday, pressing a kiss to the arc of his smile and sending him out to the living room to wait on her to get ready. And more than that, she remembers what he did with it when she got home from solving her case.
She loves that tie. And now it's in the gutter.
He told her as much as he felt he could about Alexis' kidnapping. About who his father is. And there is nothing, nothing to stop someone else wronged by Jackson Hunt from trying to take revenge again.
There's a timeline forming in her head.
Castle dresses up and goes to her apartment, stocks her fridge with dinner and then goes back downstairs, maybe for something he forgot. And in the street, someone lurks, waiting for him. A struggle. Maybe Castle is still trying to get his tie on straight and he's not looking and it's lost in the melee. His phone is smashed so no one can follow. And-
He's gone.
XXX
Esposito stays downstairs to talk to Narcotics, see if they can scare up some leads on their date-rape-murderer. She's vaguely embarrassed that he's had to take over their case, but she can't keep her mind on it.
Beckett has to ask Ryan to mark up the board. She's trembling so hard she's not sure she can draw straight for the timeline.
And all the while, her boys are giving her these soft and sympathetic looks. But it's fine. It's not a murder board. It's not. Just. . .a timeline. Castle's last known movements.
The boys go for coffee and Kate lets herself crumble for just a moment, the edge of her desk sharp against the tops of her thighs. She hasn't been able to bear with letting go of his necktie, but she's got to enter it in as evidence.
Evidence.
She grits her teeth and shoves her hands in her pockets to hide the tremors, feeling the soft rasp against her knuckles.
Huh. She tugs out the napkin from before and studies it again, and then she tacks it to the board. Ryan even put up the carnation he had tucked into his notebook; it's flattened and sad. She has no idea what it means, none at all, but maybe one of the guys who abducted him dropped the napkin, maybe the flowers were part of this? Maybe tech or someone will be able to trace everything.
But if she wants tech, if she wants the full force of the NYPD's resources, she has to tell the captain.
She locks her knees and turns to face Gates's office, sees the woman behind her desk. She's been softer lately, more open. A little less of the ferocious professionalism that she came in with. And Kate can understand that.
As a woman in this job, she felt she had to prove herself when she first started. But now, she does what the case requires, protocol or not. Hopefully Gates is becoming more supportive of that.
Beckett knocks, slipping inside when the captain beckons. The older woman signs off on a document and then glances up at Kate, glasses precarious at the end of her nose.
"Sir, could I talk to you?"
The captain leans back in her chair and steeples her fingers, an eyebrow raised. "Is this about Mr Castle? I haven't seen him around lately."
"Actually, Sir, yes, it is."
Kate swallows hard and sucks in a breath through her nose, tries to figure out how to say this without sounding like the paranoid girlfriend. She opens her mouth, but before she can get a single word out, Esposito's barging through the door.
Gates stands, her gaze fierce, and Beckett shoots a startled look to Javier. What the hell is he doing?
"Beckett. I know where he is."
XXX
"It's 'The Hangover'," Esposito is hissing. Kate lets him hustle her out of Gates's office and over to the white board once more. Ryan is there, twirling the head of that purple flower in his fingers, over and over.
"Guys? A hangover? I don't-"
"No, not a hangover. The movie."
"You've seen that movie, right?" Ryan says quickly, and then he flips the flower over and palms it, handing it out to her.
She stares at him, ignores it. "A movie?"
"The movie. 'The Hangover'. They lose the groom-"
"On the roof," she whispers, dread and certainty filling her. She jerks her head to the whiteboard even as Esposito thumps it hard.
"See this? Martha said he was going to make you dinner, but you found the ingredients all there at your place, right? All this stuff in the street, look at it."
She stares at the napkin, remembers the table cloth slumped in the sidewalk like a homeless thing, the flower still cupped in Ryan's hand.
"Flowers. The flowers strewn-"
"He's dumping stuff off the roof. He's dumping your whole dinner date."
Chocolate this morning. A box of chocolates dumped all over the sidewalk.
How could she have missed it?
"Oh God," she groans and snags her phone and keys off the desk even as she runs to the elevator.
The boys are right behind her.
XXX
Rick Castle is never so damn grateful when he sees that roof door fling open and Kate Beckett come furiously, gloriously running towards him.
He stumbles up to his feet, freezing cold and numb and awkward, but just in time to catch her when she jumps him. Her mouth is hot against his, her moan a rival for his own, and he grips her as hard as his stiff fingers will allow.
"Castle, Castle," she's saying, clutching at him. "What the hell happened to you?"
"I got roofied."
She groans, her hands gripping him even harder, shaking her head against him.
"Too soon?" he sighs into her hair. She smells fantastic. He missed her.
"Castle," she mutters.
"Thank God you figured it out," he laughs, and then he sees the boys just over her shoulder moving out onto the roof. "Wait - catch the door!"
Ryan snags it before it can close and Castle lets out a grunt of relief, dipping his forehead to her shoulder and squeezing her around the ribs probably a little too tightly.
"Let's get you inside," she murmurs at his neck, kissing his ear, his jaw. "You okay, Castle? I need to call an ambulance?"
"No, no. Just cold. You gonna warm me up?"
"Yeah," she says throatily, and he hears the worry letting loose in her voice. Letting go.
"Get rid of the boys," he hums back, still not able to let her go.
"Done."
XXX
Standing in the hall in front of her apartment door, he watches her wave the boys on their way, both of them heading back for the precinct. She's asked them to make her excuses to the Captain, and she's got a tight grip on his hand like she's afraid he'll disappear.
"What happened to your phone?" she says as she turns back to him. "I called. Why didn't you call?"
"It was already dead. I meant to charge it at your place but I couldn't find your charger and then I ran up to the roof to set up the picnic stuff. . ."
She sighs and leans in and kisses him again, the soft mouth and the shaky breath. It's worse because they were fighting, worse because he knows it felt like he was giving her the silent treatment, worse because there's so much more to lose now.
He wants her so much; he just wants her. With him. Forever. And he can't figure out a way to say it without freaking her out, without also apparently causing an international incident of epic proportions.
Stuck on a roof all night. He's still half-frozen, and she hasn't yet made the move to unlock her apartment and let them both in and he really just wants to crawl in bed with her and have her over him, the warm press of her skin to his.
He'll ditch the move in with me crusade if she'll just help him out here.
"And you got stuck out there," she sighs against his lips. "Scared the crap out of me, Castle."
"Sorry."
"Not your fault."
"It didn't occur to me that I'd need a key. I don't think you even gave me that key. What if I needed to water your plants?" he says inanely. Stupid, stupid. Let it go.
"I know how we can fix that," she murmurs then, and her hands are drifting slowly up his back, skimming along his spine. He likes that, loves that, the way she teases. He dips his head to get at her mouth but she moves away, her chin coming up.
"Never mind. I don't need another key," he says, trying to reassure her. Too big a step for her? having all the keys? "That's a little much. I'll just avoid romantic dinner dates on your roof. And let your plants all die."
She shakes her head at him and her hands cup at his neck, stroke the soft hair at his nape before trailing to his jaw. "Not what I was thinking. How about we just stay at home from now on?"
He tilts his head at her because he has no idea how that helps at all. Isn't staying at home what got him in trouble in the first place?
"Castle. You have a key to your own roof, right?"
He grins a little. "Yeah, course. I can recreate the whole thing up there-"
She stops him with a kiss, entirely to shut him up because it's just the press of her lips to his, that hum of amusement that he doesn't understand.
When she pulls back, it's that pleased and shy smile on her face, like that night she gave him a drawer in her dresser and waited for him to figure out what it meant.
She's waiting on him to figure it out now.
"All we need is keys to one place, I think," she says quietly. "All we need is one place."
He blinks slowly, feels the emotion rush up and choke him, tightening his chest and flooding his throat so that he opens his mouth but nothing comes out.
"Castle, take me home so I can warm you up."
And then she tugs him away from her apartment door and down the hall to the elevator.
They're heading home.
A/N:
seilleanmor: This has been such an awesome journey, and a pretty steep learning curve. Sometimes things can actually have plot, who knew? Honestly, though, working with Laura has shown me so much, the level of detail and commitment she gives each and every story is astounding considering the sheer volume she produces. It has been such a pleasure to be a part of it, and I'm very grateful. So thank you.
chezchuckles: A tumblr anon asked for a story where Castle got stuck on a roof and then another anon said - hey, I love Bee, you two should write a story together! And since I love that - the magic that happens when you write a fun, crazy story like this with someone - I was excited about the idea. And guess what? She jumped right in with me. No doubts, no hesitations. That is truly cool. She's got talent and she was confident enough to make her stand. Thank you for that, Bee; it was definitely magical. Also, the title is TOTALLY her AWESOME idea. looooove.