Rick Castle kept up the fleeting glances toward his partner from the previous day. Detective Kate Beckett knew that grabbing the writer's full attention would be near impossible until he and her injured detective talked. One thing that she'd learned over the course of her time working with Castle was that she needed to keep him focused in order to max out his contributions to a case. He was nothing if not similar to an enthusiastic puppy in this regard. She had, finally, and admittedly grudgingly, accepted the value that he had brought to her team. But there were other aspects of Rick Castle's personality that she found appealing, one of which was painfully obvious right now as she watched him send furtive looks to the detective sitting slumped at his desk. Castle's compassion and empathy, though often hidden by an irritatingly abundant mix of half goofiness, half cockiness, were never far from the surface. And his ability to accept when he was wrong, irritating in another way – that it happened so rarely, both that he was wrong so rarely and accepting when he was – was in full view at the moment. And boy had Castle been wrong this time. His actions could easily have gotten he and Ryan killed. The brief apology at the scene yesterday had been followed this morning by a tongue-lashing from her and Captain Montgomery the likes of which Richard Castle had never seen before. He hadn't been able to hide behind his friendship with the mayor to avoid that meeting and, to his credit, he hadn't even tried playing that card. Kate Becket figured he'd never need to be called for a similar lapse again.
"Go talk to him," Beckett said softly.
Castle brought his attention back to the beautiful woman he worked with. He pursed his brow and said, "Talk to who?"
Beckett rolled her eyes. "Isn't it talk to whom? And you know who I mean."
Castle turned once again to look at Detective Kevin Ryan. He knew that they needed to talk. It wasn't like almost getting them killed was the only dumb thing that he'd done in the last twenty or so hours. Apparently, shock could manifest itself in more ways than Castle had ever learned from the research on the subject that he'd done for his novels. He thought he knew all of the symptoms, but the one about sticking one's foot in one's mouth he'd conveniently missed until this morning when he'd experienced said symptom himself regarding Ryan and his earnest suggestion that the detective move now that Jerry Tyson knew where he lived. Beckett had set him straight on that, too. She was far kinder about it than Javier Esposito had been on the phone earlier. She knew that it was only out of concern for Ryan that Esposito had forgotten that Castle had seen Beckett's place blow up, and for many frightening minutes had been unsure whether the female detective. . .his friend. . .had survived that blast. He was keenly aware – more aware than most – how dangerous it was when the bad guys knew where the good guys lived. No matter. Castle had to concede that Esposito was only doing what came naturally: protecting his partner, something that he had failed at miserably yesterday.
"I don't know," Castle said. "Maybe it's too soon," he surmised.
"It's not," Beckett said firmly. "I can't have lingering weirdness about this. We all have to work together." Castle continued to frown as he looked toward Ryan. The look on Castle's face was one that she had rarely witnessed herself. That Richard Castle was so unsure of his next step showed Kate Beckett that they all had a ways to go to get over what had happened in that motel room the previous day. Beckett smiled and then added, "If you're worried about Esposito, don't be. He should be up with the forensics guys for a while."
"Well, that's good." Castle paused and then turned his head quickly to look at Beckett, his eyes wide with worry. "Whoa, you think I need to worry about Esposito?"
She laughed at the reaction and then looked toward her injured detective. Her warm brown eyes came back to Castle's worried blue ones. "Just go talk to him," she suggested. She stood up and grasped his shoulder. 'Courage' could easily have been the next words out of her mouth.
Castle wiped his surprisingly sweaty hands on his pants as he stood and walked to Ryan's desk.
Detective Kevin Ryan, for his part, had not moved from his position seated at his desk. In fact, his head held in his left hand, elbow propped up on the desk, while he clicked with his mouse at his computer, or switched to write something down in his notebook, had been the only way Castle had observed the ailing detective for the entire two hours he'd been at the precinct. Actually, he'd been here longer, too long if you asked Castle, but Ryan had been away, giving his statement about yesterday's events, and then he and Esposito had been among the missing for another twenty or thirty minutes. Actually, Castle knew it had been exactly twenty-three and a thirty-one seconds. When they'd returned, Ryan looked paler than Castle ever remembered, which was quite a feat for the fair-skinned Irish-American. That Esposito gave Castle the stink eye as the detective duo sat down together at Ryan's desk said a lot about how welcome the writer would be if he ventured over while Esposito continued his guard dog impersonation.
"Hey," Castle said as he took the seat next to Ryan's desk.
"Hey," Kevin mimicked. He lifted his head and squinted at the novelist.
"Still have a headache," Castle said with a sympathetic wince.
Ryan put his hand up to his forehead and then rubbed his head from the front all the way around to where Jerry Tyson had hit him. "Yeah," was all he offered in reply. He cupped his head once more in his hand, his elbow propped again on the desk.
"I wanted to say I'm sorry for what happened." Kevin stopped Castle from continuing.
"You apologized already," he said, using the eraser on his pencil to tap something on his keyboard.
"That may be so, but when I did I didn't recognize the magnitude of what I'd done." Ryan looked Castle in the eye, but didn't comment. "I could have gotten you killed. I could have gotten me killed." Realizing how that particular emphasis might sound, he quickly added, "Not that that's more important." Castle frowned and then asked, "Is putting one's foot in one's mouth a symptom of shock, and can shock last, like, twenty-four hours?"
Kevin Ryan laughed, a light snort that still managed to rock his already aching head. "Ow," he said as he then placed his right elbow on his desk and rested his face in his hands.
"Sorry," Castle offered. He reached his hand out to Ryan's shoulder. "You okay?"
"What?" Detective Javier Esposito demanded as he returned to the squad room. "You haven't done enough?"
"Esposito!" Beckett chastised firmly.
"Bro, i's aw'right," Kevin said with a tired slur.
"Beckett, I'm taking Kevin home," Esposito announced. Though he might have failed to note it, no one else missed Esposito's use of his partner's given name. That, as much as his cold shoulder towards Castle, expressed his great concern for his best friend.
"Javi," Kevin pleaded. Javier looked at Kevin and then glanced toward Castle. They didn't need words for Esposito to understand his partner's intent.
"I'll be back in five," he said warmly to Ryan. His look to Castle left a decided chill in the air.
"Don't mind him," Kevin said as he started to clean up his desk. He closed the file folder labeled 'Tyson, Jerry' and added, "He's all Papa Bear right now."
"He cares about you." Ryan nodded his head, which brought on a slight wince. He seemed to hold his head steadier as he started to shut down his computer. "I do, too."
"I know," Kevin answered, not looking up.
"I'm. . .I promise to be more careful. I don't know what got into me."
"Castle, you don't have to do this. I know you feel bad. . ."
"Kevin, you were knocked unconscious. Who knows why Jerry didn't just shoot us both?"
"I think we know why," Kevin answered.
"Yeah, I guess we do. Anyway, I don't feel that I'm expressing myself very well about how bad I feel about what happened," Castle admitted.
"Ironic, huh?" Ryan asked.
"Yeah."
Kevin put his hand on Castle's forearm. "We're okay."
"Are we?" the writer asked hopefully.
"We are," the injured detective assured his friend.
"Because I know that it's not just yesterday that I have to apologize for. My comments about your apartment. . ."
"Castle," Kevin started, "we can easily chalk up what happened yesterday to nerves, shock. . ."
"Stupidity," Castle offered.
"No. What you said about my place. . .that was stupid," Kevin noted with a satisfied smile.
"Come on," Javier Esposito ordered.
"Yes, Dad," Kevin replied.
"Shut up," Esposito huffed in a less than successful attempt to hide his worry.
Kate Beckett walked up and stood next to a still-seated Rick Castle.
Ryan looked over to Beckett and Castle with a fake 'help me' look. Then he winked at them, winced at the pain the action caused, and followed his partner out of the squad room.
"You two okay?" Kate asked.
"Yeah," Castle answered as he continued to look toward where Ryan had exited. "He's amazingly forgiving."
"Well. . ." Beckett started, her voice sounding appealingly different to Castle, "as Jessica Rabbit would say," she continued, lowering her voice to its smoky, sexy depths, and lowering her lips to touch Castle's ear, adding breathily, "he was drawn that way."
And then she walked away. Castle frowned. He looked to where Beckett was headed. Was that a sashay? He stood to follow and asked softly to himself, "What just happened here?"