A/N: So… airports inspire me, considering I was in one when I wrote "Simon Says" and when I wrote this one. And, apparently when my muse hears the term 'jump the shark', we write something that really jumps the shark. For instance – the end of a relationship when it hasn't even started in canon yet. Angst ahead. Tissues may be needed. (Sorry, ChampionshipVinyl, my bad.)
Bluebird
Sometimes, things don't end with a whimper or a bang. Sometimes they just end. Lanie/Esposito.
Lanie suddenly broke off her autopsy rundown and gave Kate and Castle strange looks. "What's that smell?" She asked. Lanie wrinkled her nose. "Castle, are you wearing cologne?"
"Yeah, I…" Castle trailed off as Lanie's face went pale and she bolted out of the autopsy suite. "Was it something I said?" He asked Beckett, but she was already following Lanie out the door. Castle looked around, and then down at the body. "Creepy." He shuddered and decided to wait for Beckett and Lanie in the hallway.
The two of them reappeared a few minutes later, Lanie no longer looking like she was about to vomit, but still paler than she should be, and Beckett was hovering behind her friend's shoulder. Castle frowned. Beckett never hovered.
"What's was that all about?" Castle's frown deepened. Beckett stared back at him. "My cologne's that bad, huh?" Castle joked, trying to lighten the suddenly sober mood.
"Bad seafood," Lanie offered. "Where were we?"
"All I'm saying is that if it was bad seafood, wouldn't the smells down in autopsy have triggered it before my cologne? It doesn't exactly smell like a garden down there, you know."
"Castle," Beckett ground out between gritted teeth. "I am trying to type up a search warrant here. If you don't shut up your face will be meeting my fist."
"Oh come on, not the money maker. Anyway, a blind man could tell you're worried about her too. Did she say anything to you?"
"While she was busy puking her guts out?" Beckett raised an eyebrow. "She said she shouldn't have shared those clams with her brother."
"Hmmm," Castle leaned back in his chair and tapped his chin. There was a story there, he knew it…
"Yo," Ryan and Esposito made a beeline for Beckett's desk. "Brother was telling the truth about his alibi. He was working the check out desk at the Columbia library when Mark was killed."
Beckett nodded. "Thought he might be. Anything else?"
"Yeah," Esposito continued. "The girlfriend's roommate told us that they – Mark and Laura, that is – used to drop by the swinger's club on campus but that they hadn't been going for about a year."
"There's a swinger club on campus?" Beckett gaped at her detectives. The three of them paused and found themselves waiting for a quip from Castle, but he was still deep in thought and not giving any indication he'd even noticed the other two had walked over. Ryan picked up the thread of conversation.
"Apparently. The roommate says they were pretty close with another couple, Joe and Margie."
"How close?" Castle popped back into the conversation.
"We figured we'd leave that one for you two." Esposito smirked. "Where'd you go, Castle?"
"I'm confused."
"He's delusional," Beckett corrected.
Castle turned to Beckett. "Okay, you explain to me Lanie's sudden, vomitous reaction to my cologne."
"It is a little vomit inducing. What is that, wet dog?" Beckett needled him. "Let it go, Castle, she had some bad seafood. It happens all the time. Ryan, Esposito, I'm assuming Joe and Margie have last names and addresses?"
Esposito handed Beckett a Post-It note.
"You two start running them. Phone and financials, let's see if they crossed paths with Mark and Laura in the last three months. Castle, let's go see what Joe and Margie have to say."
Esposito stayed in the bullpen just long enough to make a few phone calls and get the banks to start emailing records before he took off. As long as he kept it under an hour and brought food back, Ryan wouldn't bring it up unless Esposito did. Chances were Ryan knew where he was going, anyways. The man wasn't stupid, after all.
"What the hell, Lanie?"
"Detective," Lanie flicked her eyes up to meet his, and then returned to scrubbing down her autopsy table. "What can I do for you today?"
"You can stop calling me Detective, for one. And you can stop dodging me, for another. What is going on?"
"Nothing's going on, Detective." Lanie stepped around him and continued cleaning. "I'm expecting a body in twenty minutes, so if we could just move this along…"
"Lanie," Esposito put his left hand on top of hers, halting her scrubbing mid-circle. "Come on. Explain this to me." Esposito pulled a letter out of his jacket.
"You're carrying that around?" Lanie's eyes widened.
"You Dear John-ed me, Lain!" Esposito exclaimed. "I thought something was off the last couple weeks, but we were practically working triple shifts so I let it go when you said you didn't want to go out. God knows we needed the sleep. I should have realized you were avoiding me."
"We work together, Esposito, and I've been at every crime scene you have. I'd hardly call that avoiding you."
"You have been avoiding me, Lanie. You're fine at crime scenes because we never have time to talk about personal stuff, but other than that? You may as well be invisible whenever I try to find you."
"We broke up, Esposito, what else is there?" Lanie shrugged. "I need to get this done before the body gets here."
Esposito let go of her hand but didn't move away. "You broke up with me. I was never consulted on this. You ask me, I thought we had something good before you mailed that letter."
"We did. And then we didn't," Lanie sighed. He was lucky she hadn't written it on a Post-It and left it on his front door. "Are we done, Detective?"
"One more question. You pregnant?"
Lanie let out a bitter laugh. "You high, Detective?"
"I just-" Esposito unexpectedly found himself grasping for words. "Castle said you were sick."
"And the stories Writerboy tells are always true, too," Lanie snorted. "It was bad clams. I was nauseous all morning and Castle's cologne just tipped the scale. That's all."
"You're sure?"
"My having children is a physical impossibility, Detective," Lanie snapped. "I did some very stupid things in college and ended up pregnant my junior year. I miscarried my fourth month and it got so bad I had to have a hysterectomy."
Lanie paused.
"And if I was? I would have told you, Javier. No matter what. So don't make me a villain, here, okay? We're done now, right?"
Esposito stared at Lanie as the door swung open and an intern pushing a gurney entered. He snapped his mouth shut and swallowed what he'd been about to say.
"Yeah. Yeah, we're done."
"Oh, thanks bro," Ryan said, not looking up as Esposito dumped a bag of tacos on his desk. "These phone records are unbelievable and I am starv – dude, what happened?"
Esposito wondered how pathetic he looked as he dragged his chair over and slumped down across from Ryan.
"Was–"
"No."
"Is–"
"No."
"Okay." Ryan opened his mouth as though he might say something more, but then he shook his head and went back to digging through the bag.
"Are–" Okay, Ryan wasn't done.
"No."
"So–"
"Yeah."