Castle and Beckett walked out of the warehouse where they'd finally caught Beckett's mother's killer, and sighed, breathing in the cool night air. Castle, ever aware of Beckett's fragile moods, judged that she probably wasn't up for driving back to the station to do paperwork. Though the detective was, of course, ecstatic that she no longer had this mystery hanging over her head, the case that they'd just worked on had been physically and emotionally draining for the both of them, but more so for her than for Castle.
And so Castle headed straight for the driver's seat of the car. He was, after all, holding the keys. As he slid into the driver's seat, Beckett paused and looked at him, shaking her head.
"You getting in?" Castle asked, gesturing to the passenger seat next to him.
"I'd like to drive, please," she said, not moving an inch. Castle knew that it was a terrible idea – Beckett was more worn out than he'd ever seen her, and her concentration on the road wouldn't be up to scratch.
"I'm not letting you drive," Castle told her in the tone of voice he used whenever his word was going to be final.
"I'm not getting in the car then," Beckett said defiantly. "I'm sorry, Castle, but if I'm not driving this car, I'll take a cab back to the station."
"Why?" Castled asked, genuinely worried. "Beckett, you never let me drive, and you always yell at me whenever I criticise your driving. What is this really about?"
Beckett just shook her head, swallowing hard. Against his better judgement, Castle stepped out of the car and handed her the keys, but stood in front of the door and blocked her from getting in.
"Can we please talk about this?" Castle asked, looking at her.
"Talk about what?"
"Why you never let me drive," he said. "I'm not a bad driver, Beckett."
"I know, I know you're not," she smiled weakly. "It's just a psychological thing – if I'm not in a taxi, I need to be driving."
"Why?"
She threw her head back and faced the sky before she sighed and answered him. "I was involved in a car accident when I was nineteen," she said.
Castle's interest in spiked, but at the same time he felt as though he didn't want to hear it.
"I was in the passenger seat, and my boyfriend at the time was driving. We were heading down Broadway when he suddenly tried overtaking. But, he went over the other side of the road and we hit a car head on. I was lucky; I came out with a broken wrist and a some broken bones in my leg after being in a coma for a week. My boyfriend died instantly. Broken neck."
"Beckett," Castle started to say.
"The woman in the other car was taken to hospital. She was in a coma for three weeks before they turned the life support off. And I've never been able to forgive him for that; for causing the death of another woman. He was at fault, and he didn't live to deal with the consequences.
"Anyway," she said. "Since that day, I've never been able to trust anybody I'm close to to drive me around and I can't sit in the passenger seat of any car."
They were silent for a few moments, Castle staring at her carefully to make sure that she was, indeed, okay to drive back to the precinct. After deciding that she was, he took his weight off of the car and straightened up, looking down slightly to look into Beckett's face. She looked the same now as she did when she'd told him about her mother's murder.
"Now you have another back story for Nikki Heat," Beckett sniffed, opening her eyes wide in an effort not to cry. As she looked around, she saw all the other cops leaving; they'd obviously seen that the two of them where having one of their important conversations, and so they'd avoided the area like the plague. Beckett's wrath at being overheard in a situation like this was renowned around the police circles.
Castle bent down and kissed her gently on the forehead. "I trust you," he whispered to her, and let go of her to hop into the passenger seat of the car.
She smiled slightly to herself when he turned away. No matter how hard much she wanted to deny it, she knew that Rick Castle, the irritating novelist, would always accept her little quirks without question, and, happy that she was with him, and happy that the day was now over, she hopped into the driver's seat and started up the engine.
Okay, well, obviously this story takes place after they finally finish with Johanna Beckett's murder. Beckett and Castle are not meant to be together in this fic. I thought it would be a good idea to look into why Beckett is always the one driving (Lucky Stiff, anybody?). Yeah, so, my point being, this is why Beckett always drives.
And the inspiration for it? Came from a real-life situation, just like a lot of stories do. A girl I worked with up until two weeks ago was killed in a car crash yesterday morning. Luckily, she didn't have any passengers, and as far as I know the other driver is okay, but the girl was only nineteen, and even thought I didn't talk to her much and didn't know her for very long, she was one of the nicest and happiest people I've ever met, and she'll be greatly missed. And no, I'm not entirely sure how the crash happened, but I needed a story for it.
Moral of the story: drive carefully. Nobody deserves to die like that.
But stay happy.
Love, gabiellexx.
(oh, and I think it's time you knew my real name. It'll be our little secret on this here fanfic. So let's try that again.)
Love, Ashley