even our shadows flinch
We are not in love, but we both fell for the way
even our shadows flinch at the person they're following.
We are not in love.
Not with each other,
not even with ourselves.
-Everything seems beautiful until you take a closer look, Meggie C. Royer
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure two teenage girls would not be allowed to own Castle. At least, if we are allowed, nobody has told me. I also ask you, please, if you don't like the idea nor find it plausible, do not read on and leave negative comments. Neither myself nor Eleantris ship Castle/Beckett any less than we ever have, but if you can't explore plausible ideas within the realm of fanfiction, where else can you? Overall, this will be split into 3 chapters. Enjoy.
He makes her laugh, this six foot something ex-forces detective who wears his badge around his neck like a medal. She likes that he takes it so seriously, that this job is as important to him as it is to her. And it has been oh so long since Kate Beckett laughed. For years now her laughter has been hollow; it has echoed in the empty chambers of her heart and the dark pits of her lungs, smudging shadows beneath her eyes. Javier Esposito teaches her to laugh again. It fills her heart and ignites the tiniest flame in the recesses of her lungs, just for a moment. He gives her hope.
She has been at the twelfth only two weeks but already she knows who her partner is.
"Morning, Kit-Kat." He strides into the break room, mug in hand and comes to stand beside her at the coffee machine. "Now how come you're always here before me?"
Her eyes scowl up at him but there's a quiver at the corner of her lips that he has come to recognise as the threat of a smile. "Maybe Kit-Kat," she forces the two syllables out between her teeth with a locked jaw and raised eyebrow, "would like to drink her morning coffee in peace."
Javi isn't fazed. He merely gestures with both hands, broad shoulders opening as he shrugs and grins. "Hey, every newbie's gotta have a nickname! It's the rules. Could be worse. I could just be calling you New Girl." He knocks her shoulder with his own and she knocks him back.
Kate takes her coffee, smile still more in her eyes than her lips as she glances up at him. She steps away, his back to her now. Leaning against the counter, she wraps both hands around her cup as the machine hums into life again. It's meant to be new, but the coffee still tastes terrible.
"So, how's paperwork?" he asks, and she sees his shoulders rise with a silent chuckle.
He turns just in time to see her narrowed eyes and the upward turn of her lips. Her next words slide from her tongue, calculated. "Not too bad, Mr July."
She's got him there. His hand stills the spoon that was stirring his coffee and she just quirks an eyebrow. But he recovers; of course he does. "Oh so you've seen the calendar, huh?" Letting go of his spoon he makes a show of flexing the biceps in his right arm, looking admiringly from them to her with a smirk. "I bet you just can't wait for July to roll around."
She laughs, because how can she not? His jokes mean next to nothing, his smirks and muscle flexing always an elaborate act, but there's a spark of laughter in his eyes that evokes it in her, that brings it bubbling forth from she doesn't know where. She knows she is grateful.
"Oh I don't know, Javi. I'm more of a Mr April kinda girl." There's still laughter in her smile as she eyes him over the top of her coffee cup, testing the temperature against her top lip.
"Pfft." He swigs back a mouthful of coffee, chucking the spoon in the sink. "Of course you are, Kit-Kat. Of course you are."
She smiles and for the next few moments they are silent and she half-wishes the job could consist of this and only this. That her days could be spent drinking morning coffee with her partner, oblivious to the messy world beyond the play of artificial light in the shuttered blinds of the break room. But it is only a half-wish. She has unfinished business in that messy world.
So she'll admit to it, she and Esposito make a pretty good team.
The boys around the table explode into laughter at something Esposito says, the team sparkly-eyed from a tedious and complicated case well solved and perhaps one too many beers. She feels the warmth of the alcohol unfurling through her veins, something deliciously happy that she can't quite pin down and a gentle buzz settling across her mind.
Esposito catches her watching him and she flicks her eyes back down to her bottle, her third beer almost gone now as she's drank away heartily with the rest of the team. It's been the first time that she's been so close to tipsy, perhaps, in a while- But she's finally been accepted among the team after a brilliant take down this morning, and in a male-dominated workforce, she's not going to reject any offers of making friends just because of her father's habit of seeking shadows at the bottom of the bottle. It can't hurt. Not like Royce. Never like Royce.
"Another round?" Esposito offers to the table, but too soon they're moving away, offering excuses, too-friendly smiles aimed towards her as she grimaces against their complaints of their wives badgering them to get home earlier.
Too late, she realises, it's just her and Esposito sitting in the quiet corner of the cop bar, ambience perhaps a little too warm for her liking. He eyes her warily, like she's a caged animal, and she curls her fingers around her coat, preparing her excuses to leave.
"Don't think I don't see you trying to get out of drinking me under the table."
She smirks, fingers unfurling even as her legs ache to carry her away, but the warmth of the alcohol or the bar or his eyes- she doesn't know what- make her will herself to just stay grounded for as long as she can. Just for one night.
"Espo, you're more drunk than me right now," she deadpans.
He snorts. "More excuses."
She rolls her eyes at his ability to crawl under her skin, mess with her like a wind-up toy and send her running. And she knows what he's doing, but she can't care to stop him. It feels nice to smile, to feel the weight in her lungs distribute equally and float for a while, instead of dragging her down, her constant anchor.
"I really should go. It's getting late."
Esposito raises his eyebrows. "More paperwork, Beckett?"
Beckett stills, tugging her lower lip beneath her teeth as she tries to block out the thoughts of endless files, violent images and lost files swirling through her foggy mind. But of course, he can't really know about it, nobody does. Except Montgomery, but that was over a year ago, when she was still an officer sneaking into places she really shouldn't have.
"Someone's gotta do their job around here."
"That's why you're Montgomery's favourite, right?"
"Excuse me?"
"Well, we all know that he fast-tracked you into homicide. Wondered what it was about you that made him so eager. Guess he likes the goodie two shoes."
She feels heat flood her face, and she's not quite sure if it's through embarrassment or through her own stubborn ways. Either way, she hates the tone he uses, the way he diminishes her efforts. It makes her skin crawl, her spine straightening with all the taut tension of a bow.
"I graduated first in my class, Esposito," she tells him sternly, chin raised high.
His eyes widen. "I know. I know, I wasn't saying-"
"I didn't cheat my way into homicide."
He raises his hands, palms faced forwards. "I wasn't- I was just messing with you."
She huffs, tucking an errant strand of short hair behind her ear. "Good."
He watches her as she takes a swig of the last of her beer, something carefully reserved in his eyes. Curiosity ignites in her chest but she quells it, waits him out instead of ruining things like she always does.
"You're a good cop, Kit-Kat," he says softly.
"I know," she says smugly, watching the smirk linger on his lips. "And stop calling me that. I'm not candy."
"I told you, it's that or New Girl." He ribs her gently, eyes glittering with mischief.
A small smile tugs on her lips but she smothers it quickly.
"Fine, Javi. But no using it around the others, okay?"
He grins. That lazy, self-satisfied smile of his that shouldn't make her chest flutter but it does. "As you wish."
It's January 9th again. No words can ever be found to describe the aching chasm Johanna Beckett's murder left in her daughter's soul. No words could be found at her funeral; no words can be found now. Dusk pervades the cramped living space of Kate's apartment as she cowers in the corner, fearful of where the oncoming night lurks in the shadows. On her knees, she crawls to reach for her Mom's file, tugging it from her bag, abandoned by the door. The photos slip out as she drags the file toward her and suddenly there is not carpet beneath Kate's knees but hard concrete, not paper between her fingers but the rough wool of her father's coat and soaked tissues from silent cops with nothing to say.
The images spill across her apartment floor in front of her and all she can see is the blood – too much blood, clotting crimson stains on her Mom's clothes, in her hair and smeared below unblinking eyes that would never smile again, their corners never again crinkling the way she always loved. She can smell it, pungent and repulsive in her sinuses, can hear the choked sobs of her father and her own strangled cries. She can hear the empty silence of her Mom's corpse, the dull thud of black as they close her eyes once they've lifted her body onto the gurney. She is wheeled away and she never comes home.
As a little girl, Kate Beckett used to trace her mother's face with her fingertips and ask in all her innocence if she would ever grow to be so pretty. As a scared young woman, she examines the minutiae of her post-mortem in the ever vain hope that there is something, anything that may have been missed. Always there is nothing but a sickening contrast in memories between the warmth of her Mom's embrace and the coldness of her skin in that alley.
She tries to focus on the words on the page, the details of her Mom's case, the photos and the witness statements and dead-end after dead-end. But it's too much. There are too many voices and screams and memories all fighting in her head. She is a closed circuit, the same despair circling round and round and she is so tired of fighting this alone, of scrabbling against dead-ends as though trying to tunnel through, of the way the chill wind of the anniversary raises her heart-rate every year, sending her breath scattering and lungs incapable of stealing the air she needs.
With tear-smeared eyes and trembling fingers, Kate fumbles for the phone. She dials the number without checking that it's right, without pausing to wonder what he might be doing or what he might think of her if she does this. All she knows is that she doesn't feel like this when he is there. That he makes her laugh. He believes in her. He thinks she's a good cop –
"Hello?"
The sound of his voice is like ice water, shocking her into stillness. She is silent for a split second that seems to stretch for a lifetime. When she eventually speaks her voice is hoarser than she realised and broken.
"Ja-Javi?"
"Kate?" There is a pause. Distantly, she hears a thud and imagines him setting down a drink or the TV remote. She instantly regrets interrupting his evening. "Kate, is something wrong? Are you okay?"
A sob cracks in her throat and trips out from between her lips before she can bite it back. And then she can't stop. The instant note of alarm in his voice – the worry in his words is more than she can bear. She can't remember the last time someone asked her 'are you okay?' and seemed to actually care about the answer. She has no words. She wants to stop crying but she can't and with every sob she feels like another one of her secrets is escaping down the phone to him, that the longer she cries the more she loses and the more he gains. She hasn't felt this weak in a long time. It terrifies her.
"Kate? Kate, listen. I'm coming round. Okay? I'm coming round."
She opens her mouth to protest, reaches a hand out as though that can stop him from however many blocks away. But there is a click and then silence. She drops the phone with quivering fingers, her heart beating even faster now. And then it is like the weight of an ocean pressing down on her chest, like she's drowning in nothing but air. She can't breathe, can't pull in the air she needs because this is not what she wanted; this is not what she meant to happen. The world spins and it keeps spinning for a long time – too long – and she's desperately fighting for something to freeze and make sense.
When his hurried knock sounds, it seems to take a lifetime for her lungs to haul in enough breath for her to drag herself to her feet and cross the space toward the door.
She opens the door slowly, so ready to spew apologies; she even has her Russian doll smile painted on, if sloppily. But then he is there and she is in his arms and he smells of the night-time and safety and she is breathing in that delicious contradiction, so grateful to him for coming. One arm is wrapped tight around her torso, his other hand in her hair, not stroking but just holding her. She can taste salt on her tongue; she can hear his deep voice in her ear.
"Shh, hey. Hey, what's wrong? Kit-Kat, what's wrong...Kate?"
They end up on her couch, his arms still strong around her, saltwater still staining her cheeks despite her incessant attempts to swipe it away. He marvels at her, words gone now as he takes in the despair in her eyes, the mess of papers across her apartment floor. Esposito doesn't understand, so he just holds her closer, tighter, as though he can put her back together again just by doing that - make her his bold, sarcastic Kit-Kat again.
Kate takes a deep, staggered breath as she draws back from him. "Oh God, Javi, I'm s-so sorry."
He reaches for her again, slides his hands down her arms to her wrists, lingers his fingers there, pulse thrumming beneath her skin, and then takes her hands, holding them tight. "Hey, Kate, no. Look at me. Kate?"
She looks up at him warily. He glances behind them at the scattered photos and police reports across the floor. "What's all that? Is that…is that a murder file?"
Nodding, Kate drops her gaze again as though scared he can unravel her if he looks into her eyes for too long. Her next words are quiet - drops of water in a well in the stillness of silence. "It's my Mom's."
Instinctively, Esposito's hands grip hers tighter. "Your… Kate, your Mom was murdered?"
"Five years ago today."
Her voice breaks and then she is confessing everything. In the next hour Esposito learns why Kate Beckett is always at the precinct so early, why she disappears to the records room on most of her breaks, why she always seems so buried in paperwork and research. Ever since her official placement started she has been ceaselessly re-investigating her Mom's case, searching desperately for a mistake, for a lead that was passed over, for anything that was missed. In the next hour he learns why she zones out sometimes, why she is so gifted when it comes to connecting with the victims' friends and family, why it is that she has this haunted look in her eyes sometimes like there's something not quite whole inside of her.
He sits and he listens and he holds her hands, clutching them tighter as the words spill out into the dusk between them. And then when she is empty, when all the words are gone and the stories exhausted, he pulls her closer again. And somewhere in the middle of it all, in the midst of this horror story and the storm in her past that still follows in her wake, Esposito can't help but think that in all her sadness and her desperate melancholia, there is something so intrinsically strong and beautiful about Kate Beckett that he wonders how he never noticed it before.
Crap.
Beckett tugs at her hair, spins on the spot as she growls and then begins pacing again. Up and down and up and down and up and down. God- She doesn't know what to do- Doesn't know how to deal with this. Therapy has taught her to let it go, therapy has taught her that her life is worth more than her mother's death but she doesn't feel that. Inside, amidst the arteries clogged with grief and chambers of aching emptiness, she feels a fire flaring bright, her one hope: If she catches her mom's murderer, if she gets justice, then maybe her mother's death won't have all been for nothing.
So why is it so hard to delve in?
Part of her, most of her, is telling her to do it. When she looks down at the hastily-written numbers on a scrap piece of paper, her heart aches to pick it up, call the number and meet this informant. But a part of her- a minute, almost transparent part of her- tells her to hold back. Slow down. Just… Breathe.
She grabs her cell, listens to the aggravating dial tone for what feels like a minute too long until he finally picks up.
"Espo."
"I need your help," she releases in one breath, feeling herself deflate into a sense of security as she does.
"You- Beckett, it's ten at night, the case was closed."
"Just come to the precinct as soon as you can."
"The precinct? Beckett, do you ever leave that place?" he questions, and the judgement in his tone sets her a little on edge, has the nerves hooking back into the bottom of her lungs. "What are you doing there?"
"Esposito. Just get here. Now," she orders through a clenched jaw, hanging up before he has the opportunity to reply.
She paces up and down and up and down and up and down in the empty bullpen, pulling her lower lip between her teeth and trying to blot out the images of blood and pale skin and empty, lifeless eyes.
By the time Esposito arrives, she's worn a hole into the precinct floor from all of her pacing. He doesn't question her at first, jogging from the elevator to her desk and taking in her frazzled appearance, the files scattered across her desk and flowing over to the floor, the several empty mugs of coffee that litter the desk next to hers when she had ran out of space. It's then, as she cradles the piece of paper to her chest like it's her lifeline, that he speaks.
"Is this about your mom?" he asks reproachfully.
It's always about her, Beckett thinks. But she slowly unfurls her palm, reaches out to show him the paper.
"I have a lead," she croaks.
He nods slowly, shoving his hands into his pockets. He's changed since leaving the precinct- wearing jeans and a sweater for the Yankees, while she wears her crumpled shirt, uncomfortable fitted pants and heels that sometimes make her totter a little too much as she chases after a suspect. But now, as she stands there, and he has to look up at her- it makes it worth it. It makes her feel like she has the tiniest shred of control, if she's ever had any at all.
"And you want my help?"
"I need it, Espo," she confesses. "You're the only one… The only one who knows."
He sighs, glancing over at the manila folders that have created a second carpet.
"You sure you know what you're getting into, Beckett?"
"I don't care." She says it with a confidence she doesn't feel. "Javi, I don't care. She's my mom. Are you in this or not?"
Esposito stares at her carefully, studies the defiant sparkle in her eyes, the phantom of confidence which always lingers as her aura even if she doesn't realise it. He knows that there's no convincing her to step away- at least, he knows he never could. And he doesn't want to begin to imagine what it's like to be her, to live in a web of unresolved questions and grief. So he steps forwards, takes the number from her palm, and helps.
"Where'd you get this?"
"A work colleague of my mom's. He told me the guy would have answers. A solid lead."
"You sure 'bout that?"
Kate bristles, spine straightening. "Are you doubting me, Espo?"
"No, of course not. But you know what it's like- You can't trust everything you're given," he points out.
She shrugs, taking the paper from him as she slides her phone from her pocket, a desperation in her eyes that he wishes he could reverse, wishes he had never seen in the first place. Her strength is admirable, but no one person should ever have to go through this. Not anyone. Not Beckett.
"I just need you to be my backup. Wait in the car in case…" She doesn't finish, lets the sentence linger open-ended between them.
Nobody could ever say no to those eyes, to their desperation, to their lack of hope. So he gives in, taps his gun in its holster. "I'll be there."
Her smile falls apart on her face then, fracturing into glass shards that makes her bleed in desperation, relief and hope. It's the most beautiful tragedy he's ever seen, and his heart aches for it, for her, for all of which he doesn't understand and most likely never will. But at least he can help her with this, help her gain answers. At least there's that.
They take her cruiser to the arranged meet up. A shady part of Manhattan with too many broken street lamps for a good view. She pulls the car to a stop and squints, and ten yards ahead of them he can see the vague silhouette of their informant, a man with a cigarette cradled between his lips. The hair on the back of his neck raises instantly, but she places a hand on his arm, a silent plea in her eyes.
"Let me do this. Please, Javi." She murmurs in the dark safety of the car, and something about her keeps making him give in, makes him relax into the seat and nod at her slowly before she leaves.
The exchange doesn't last more than three minutes, their breath curling like smoke between them in the February air. He watches the confident posture of Beckett slowly diminish, the way she becomes a taut bow before finally she slumps, taking two steps back and spitting words as though they're the only thing she has. And then the informant walks away and she is stalking back to the car furiously, slamming the car door behind her when she climbs back in.
"Nothing?" he asks bluntly, because he knows she needs that, doesn't need someone to cover her in cotton wool and tell her better luck next time.
Beckett grits her teeth, knuckles turning white around the steering wheel as she tilts her head back against the headrest, pale arc of her throat exposed and vulnerable, eyes shut and distant from him.
"Beckett?"
"Nothing," she whispers. "God, it's always- always the same!" she cries, slamming her hand into the steering wheel in a fit of fury, shoulder-length curls tossing around her face.
"Woah, woah," he says, grabbing her pale fists when she attempts to hit it again, knuckles already swelling. "Beckett, calm down-"
"Calm down?" she repeats incredulously, shoving his hands away. "You have no idea what it's like, Esposito. You have no idea. So don't you dare tell me to calm down."
"I know. I know I don't. But, Kit-Kat-"
"Don't," she hisses sharply. "Javi, don't."
He gives up with a sigh, and they don't speak again when she turns the engine on, or when she pulls away, or when she drives through the dull lights of the city and back to the front of his cramped apartment. He glances at her when she stops, but she's looking away, and even in the reflection of the glass she's only half-there, the rest of her lost in the darkness.
So he climbs out, watching with regret settling low in his stomach when she drives away without looking back, until the night swallows her whole.
Nothing. She can feel it in her hands and in her chest. Isn't that all she has ever had when it comes to her Mom's case? Between the typed up lines and the cold images and the stapled pages there is an aching emptiness that she can't fill. There are details and answers missing and she feels like she will never find them. It kicks her in the gut, has her sending the file flying across the room with a cry that does nothing to relieve her frustration. It hits the wall with an unsatisfactory thud, papers fluttering to the floor. She'll pick them up later. Right now she needs a drink and her bed and she wishes –
She wishes that she wasn't alone.
It wasn't Esposito's fault. She feels her throat burn and clog up with the same guilt she felt as a little girl whenever she knew she had done something wrong. Her fingers hover in the general direction of the phone; the one true friendship she has and she has let the shadows and the storm mar it. She doesn't want that. But before she can pick up the phone, there is a knock at the door, strong and simple.
Frowning, she crosses her living space, hand resting on her gun, just in case. A million scenarios fly through her mind in that split second – what if the informant was just luring her out, what if she had let something slip, what if they had come for her and –
She opens the door to find Esposito standing on the other side. There is something fierce and stubborn in his eyes, a look she identifies as the one he wears when dealing with difficult suspects.
"You were right," he says bluntly, before she can even form words. "I have no idea what it's like, Kate. I don't know what it's like to lose a parent like that, to be left with so many dead ends and unanswered questions. But I do know what it's like to lose someone important, to hold their cold hand in yours and know they're never coming back – " He takes a breath and there is something desperate now in his eyes, something that strikes a chord on her heartstrings and he doesn't know it but his words are playing a symphony on them.
He sighs, defeated. The fight in his previous words is not in his next ones.
"Just…just let me help you with this, Kit-Kat. Talk to me."
Kate takes a deep breath – she hovers at the top of her lungs, on the verge of something. She could jump, force out all of her anger, pour her frustration out onto him, rant and throw words around as though they will somehow relieve everything that is churning and has been churning for too long inside her head. But she doesn't. Instead she climbs down from top of her lungs slowly, releasing the breath and swallowing the rage.
"Okay," she says quietly, standing back to let him in. "Okay."
They talk. She tells him how the dead ends feel like endless lost shoelaces in her hands, always slipping between her fingers, never finding their pairs or their resolutions. She tells him how it feels like there is an abyss inside of her, gaping black and wide, and sometimes the edges bleed cold fury and red injustice. She tells him how her world crumbled into jigsaw pieces that day five years ago and how she still hasn't the courage to move the four corners of her world back into place, let alone complete the edges and align the mess of pieces in the middle. She tells him that it hurts, that it burns. That beneath her grief is a stronger mass of emotion that she fears will never go away unless she solves the case. She tells him that she is scared, that at night she feels some shade of herself flinching at what she has become, at what she hasn't become, at what she may and may not ever become. She tells him that she misses her Mom more than words can say.
Esposito takes all of her words and hides them beneath his skin. He sits and he listens as she dissects herself in front of him and hands him every smeared and bloody piece of her shadow for safekeeping. He gives her some of his in return.
He tells her of the terror he felt creeping behind him every step he took in Iraq. He tells her that sometimes, even now, he feels tendrils of that terror clinging to his back and of how he is still learning to shake them off. He tells her that he will never forget the first time someone died right before his eyes - a weeping corpse of khaki, a cast-off of violence. Another casualty. Another number. He tells her that before the twelfth, he worked at another precinct. He tells her that he lost his partner there, that he doesn't want to talk about it. But he knows what it is to lose someone who can never be replaced. He cannot share her sense of injustice, her rage and her pain at all the things she fears she will never know. But he can share her grief, her sadness and her loss. He can help her with that.
They talk until silence finally envelops them on the couch, drifting into empty glasses and a half empty bottle of wine. Kate looks up at him in the semi-darkness, studying for a moment the blank canvas of his profile. He gives nothing away – she would know nothing of the burdens he carries if it were not for his words. She wonders if her face is the same, if she has perfected her mask to his extent. She hopes she will someday learn to.
"…Javi?"
His gaze meets hers and his lips just release a murmur to let her know he's listening.
"Thank you," she says softly, blinking. A tear slips from the end of her lashes as she lets out a shaky laugh. "I guess I'm not the only messed up one here then, huh?"
He laughs too, a little easier than her. "We're not messed up, Kit-Kat, we're – "
He doesn't get to finish his sentence. In the space of a split second he feels Kate's lips on his, pressing tentatively, chastely. He only realises that he wants to kiss her back once she has pulled away.
Her fingers fly to her lips, eyes still glazed with tears widening. "Shit, Javi, I'm sorry, I – " It all comes out as a rush, fumbling vowels and terrified panic because no that is not what she meant to happen, that is not what she meant to happen at all.
But this time it is her that doesn't get to finish her sentence. His lips press more insistently to hers and his kiss is a decision and a promise and a ray of light thrown into the dark. She feels his fingers sink into her hair, cradling her, lips caressing. She moans against his mouth and moves closer; there is fire spreading through her veins and it has been so long since anyone touched her like this. She doesn't want to think about the last time.
The kiss grows fiercer still, fire flaring and crackling in the darkness at the pits of their lungs. Somewhere in amongst it all Kate feels his hands on the buttons of her shirt, feels him push the creased material from her shoulders, expose her skin to the cool air and his heated fingertips. She fumbles with his belt and then clutches his sweater in her fists. Pulling them both to their feet, kisses hot and gasping, she manoeuvres them back toward her bedroom and they fall together, clinging to each other like ships to their anchors in a storm.
She is arched into him, moans warm on his tongue as her hands search everywhere they can reach, pulling his sweater over his head, fumbling for his belt again. It is a tumble of passion and desperation and a frenzied grapple for hope in the blackness, but for once Kate doesn't have to think. For once neither of them do, and for once the abyss inside herself closes just a little, a glimmer of light just threatening at the very bottom.
TBC