Walking down the alleyway he's not yet sure how to go about this. Last case. It echoes to him in a familiar way, because they've been here before. He's tried to walk away before. Unsuccessful then, but maybe this is the one. Even if he is totally invested, completely over his head, unshakably in love with Kate Beckett.
Fuck is all he can piece together in his cluttered musings as he marches toward the scene.
Spotting her among the group, folded arms guard her chest while scrutinizing the vic, combing the details thoroughly with Lanie and the boys. She's gone ahead without him. It's just as well seeing that he took his time coming around anyway. A fight rises within, though, provoked from the idea of walking back into what he's about to walk away from.
In his approach they all look on him, each narrowing over his quiet demeanor and unnatural composure, to his empty, coffee-less hands. They know better cataloging this reserved behavior that something is up, but words are as difficult as breathing comes. They appear winded, like he's returned as a ghost. Ryan, Espo, and Lanie shut out their air and hold it, exchanging glances before finding Beckett unfazed. The profile of her face resembles stone, just as his when his blue can finally clash her green.
"Thanks for calling," he says resting hands into his pockets. He keeps cool despite the wide-eyes following him. Beckett nods curtly, circling around the body farther from him before she responds.
"Sure. Didn't think you were gonna come so we just–"
"It's fine," he dismisses. It's quick, too quick.
The silence following enables longer stares, more of them, but neither participate, only Lanie with the guys. They're not as focused on the case, of course.
None of them are, really, devoting the attention they need to be on the victim.
To fill the quiet Lanie's slackened jaw speaks loud and well enough, but her next few words do a better job to summarize everyone's thoughts. "Castle. Where the hell have you been man?"
Gone. Busy. Hurt. Some combination thereof. "I missed you too Lanie," he says with a grin. The curve slopes too much with the tightened corners of his lips. Crooked. Shaped well by insincerity. "Been…preoccupied at home. Helping Alexis prepare for graduation, slash post-graduation too. I'm better at the latter, apparently."
A couple smirks pass through, but it doesn't last long.
"It's a milestone, huh?" Beckett offers up. It's composed of hope in the rise of each syllable. He's kinda surprised...but not really. It's Beckett. Of course she's brave to cut the air. "It's gotta be a big change to have a college girl around now."
He takes the comment in, seizing the opportunity. "There's bigger ones arising I'm left to consider." Off her stare awaiting some explanation, he collects a better punch for what he's getting at. "I've enjoyed what I've been doing, but I need some big changes in my life too."
Beckett's lids flutter. She blinks away confusion to hide whatever thrives in her eyes, but he catches the burning forest in her iris that's helplessly compelled to meet the storming sky in his. The whole proposition reigns her focus away from the case and onto him. Questions don't follow. She just contemplates him, holding on until she rips away, the pain in everything that he might mean serving as his tool.
He's jabbing in all the right places.
She drills her attention into the victim evidently setting the conversation aside, and he watches the effect carefully unravel her. All the talk muffled, it permits him to focus on her without interference. He can't tell if he's actually enjoying this, even if there is some twisted satisfaction in the thickening tension between them. Her reaction strokes his curiosity for further results, feeding the daring mind...a little boy thrilled over gripping a knife.
Tempted to test the damage it can do.
He eyes Beckett at every opportunity for her inability to unite and make any contact. So many attempts, absolutely no return. With the exception of spitting crime details, she doesn't say much. So neither does he. Instead she sits on his comments, now a living distraction, an itch under her skin that she strives to hide through constant movement, her face narrowing into a concentrated state over something no one can be totally sure of.
Noticing an object stowed away, he snaps out of his thoughts to return to the investigation. "Shoe," he says finally. Whatever chat going on outside of his head stops, their attention following his gesture to the vic's foot.
She reaches over and pulls out a holster, an array of tools tucked in the slots. "Lock picks," she says lifting her head to him.
"Now why would he be needing those?" he plays.
–
Returning to the precinct, the team sweeps up more and more info on the guy. Orlando Costas, a thief. It's a surprise seeing how well a gang member of the Cazadores cleaned up his act, but his recent actions pose more questions in contrast. They pursue next of kin, his girlfriend Marisol, retracing Costas steps to land on a bloody trail that leads them into the next alley.
"Body dropped two blocks from here," Espo says as they approach the car fitting Marisol's description. "Blood smeared on the armrest. Gotta be it."
Castle's invested, the initial haze fading now that the case continues on this tumbling progression. However, any chance at conversation, with Beckett at least, seems at a loss, as she's only managed to look at him since his comment – peeking sideways when he seems intent elsewhere even though he's not.
She creates space while investigating, his presence probably repelling him away from her two-feet radius of frustration, and yet stifles all her words. He has to stay if anything will be resolved, and he sees her resistance in knowing that. Fortunately, they have the case. It's one thing they've got to hold them together.
"He was shot somewhere else and then he came here? Why not go home? Why not go get patched up?" Castle says.
"There was a meet, here," Beckett says as she assesses the interior. Oh. A reply. "He was expecting someone in that alleyway."
"Phone. Last call–" Espo checks the logs for anything. "…4:47AM. Just before time of death."
"Run it," she says, attention now directing towards Ryan's hand, holding up a .38.
"Recently fired."
"A shootout. That's why he's got the shoulder wound," Castle says.
"Which means we could be looking for another–" She stops on Espo's throat clearing, his lips parting to speak but reluctant to give it up. "What do ya got?" she says, nodding at him to talk.
"His last entry was 299 First Avenue," he ends in a swallow. Castle bears no look. Not like the others.
"What – what's at 299 First Avenue?"
Mouth shifting, the answer arrives as an alarm only in her mind, her face jolting awake to some new consciousness as if the worst is about to leave her lips. He sees her gnaw on the answer, not wanting to tell. Maybe she can't accept it...or let it be obtainable in that way. But it needs to be said, he discovers, to answer him. "That's Montgomery's. Roy, Montgomery's."
–
The visit to check on Evelyn stirs everyone, and with the reveal of what Santos was after the connections start linking up, but all keep silent on the matter. Everyone knows what this means, but no one has the strength to address it. Castle especially, coming second out of the team on the distress severity spectrum, receiving the realization almost just as poorly as Beckett.
Files. Santos got files, case files from Montgomery that are now nowhere to be found. All three boys exchange those knowing stares upon returning to the precinct, shooting their debate in harsh whispers to avoid Beckett's ears, but she's undoubtedly thinking the same thing slapping Montgomery's picture on the murder board.
Johanna Beckett. Johanna Beckett. Johanna Beckett.
It's a stressed heartbeat splashing the waters that have calmed among them in the last year, and the only reflection enduring these splashes is the shadow of the man from the parking garage. That's what lurks now in Castle's conscience, if this really is, well, what it is.
He looks from a distance on Beckett in the break room, seeing the distress transfer through her arm and into the flick of her wrist, coffee spinning and spoon clinking the walls of her mug in such a violent rhythm to prevent anything entering her thoughts. He's still, but his feet flex in his shoes in a natural eagerness. He just waits, waits for any sign to act. It's the second her eyes dart out into the bullpen to find his that he jumps, but after she's already turning away to seek stability from the chair nearby.
He assumes his post at the doorway, leaning against the frame as she sits–not drinking her coffee, not looking at him, but lost in the specks of the floor instead. Their previous unbalanced footing melts away, coming together with a more familiar ease but both holding the same concerns…fears. He's sure she won't speak on them, but before he can start anything she weeds out a request.
"Can I ask a favor?" she says, voice tense as he imagined…but he's surprised. Her question, her tone, it seeks permission like the request comes undeserved. Either that or she's uncomfortable asking anything from him right now. Maybe both.
"Sure," he says, some gentleness still thriving in the small space of speech.
"Say…" Her jaw moves to split her mouth into a slit, a breath struggling through it to meet his ears, staring down her mug. "Say something reassuring."
Careful here, aware of what she's asking and wanting to give it, he hesitates. The perfect thing to tell – it won't be enough. Not for her. Not for this.
"There are thousands of break-in's in New York City every year."
Her lids hide the anxiety glazing over her eyes, exhaling through an incomplete smile for his effort. Considering their communication lately, she seems to appreciate it with her slight nod. But he knows it's not enough for her to discount her gut on this. "We both know it's different."
Vulnerable. This flash of vulnerability calls him when she looks to him again, reeling him further into the break room in slow steps toward her as he crafts some reply. Satisfactory or not, he's going to try and lift this from her shoulders. They're still partners. "Okay. It's different. But different doesn't mean your mother, doesn't mean we're here again."
"Santos is dead, Castle. It's their process, what they do to people they don't need, or who are in their way. You can take a guess what I am to them. Montgomery said so himself – I got too close, and up to now they want me gone. Even after he sacrificed his life for mine." He gulps, words eluding him as she shakes her head, nibbling on the edge of her lip. "You know, that night in the hangar lives with me. I wake up some days and it floors me that I'm in my own bed, home. Safe. But I'm not am I? I'm still waiting on that other shoe, for that other shoe to finally…drop. What if this is it?"
Heat curls his neck in a collar, the vision of her living with anticipation of another attack at the chokehold. It wouldn't happen. No. Not before, not prior to this case. The terms had been set.
And...she still has no idea.
–
It's late, even for him, a writer up not writing. He's having a staring contest with his own murder board instead, hands folded to prop up his chin as he repeats the names, the dates, the people, and all the other details of Johanna's case in his head.
They're back. They're back here, again. Yeah it's not definitive, but that's what it looks like.
Of every aspect in the case the anonymous man returns with the most power, his words piercing through Castle's chest, the instructions reverberating inside with their own life. There's a particular mix to his anger, apprehension, and anguish over it, but none exceed each other as his mind stays, stays in the same state when he left Beckett. It's torn. He wants to be supportive, because she needs to be supported. But there's a callousness that's grown for her these last few weeks, and that can't be peeled off so freely. Not without consequence. She's keeping her secrets.
But the man of the shadows continues to interject, and that's when reality takes its bite. He's keeping secrets too. But, his secret is keeping her alive. That's what matters. That's the difference.
It helps him to repeat that over and over...and over.
With one brush of his shoulders all his musings disturb and wash out at the hand of Martha, ill feelings draining out in his spasm of her presence as she sits down on the desk to block his view of the board and secure his full attention. She pats his arm, holding it with the grip of her fingertips while she evaluates the damage. "Hey."
"Hey," he greets dry. It's not intentional. The exhaustion weighs over his voice more with each additional word, nearly all moisture absent from his throat. "Isn't this kinda early for your acting exercises?" he says.
"Isn't it pretty late for your theorizing?" she copies. His lips flatten as he sits up certain he'll hear more out of her. "What are ya doing kiddo?"
"I'm…thinking," he spits out fast.
"About Beckett…about her mother's murder."
"I don't want to," he insists, arms more animated now. "I hope this isn't that. But I'm worried that it is, and in that worry, I'm taking certain measures to counter it."
"By staying up all night? Staring at your screen like a zombie? I'm guessing you've also abandoned that idea that this is your last case?"
Leaning back further in his seat both hands rake down his face to remove the wear. It doesn't help much. Finding his mother's stare her blues gleam in sympathy, trying to understand. "I don't know," he confesses, the acknowledgement a wake-up call.
"Unsolicited acting advice here: commit to the role. You love her, or you don't, you need to pick your part and play it. Because whatever mess you're doing now, all of us are unconvinced."
"You can really take the weight of a situation and just throw it out the window, Mother," he says, head bobbing and hands flopping around in frustration. "It's…a bit more complicated than that."
"Is it?" she says, entertaining his claim, but with skeptical undertones.
"There's been…we've been off, disjointed, and now this case? I can't jump back into that same rhythm with her, but I'm not walking away from this, not if the case is pointing in the direction we believe it is."
"Why is it that you're great with the words but never when it comes to yourself?" He blanks out, primed to respond but she takes another turn. "It's simple, huh? You love her. You love her, but she hurt you, and you want her punished. That's all that's stopping any of this from going forward. I won't tell you whether that's right or wrong, but darling – if you're gonna do that – at least let her know why."
Exhaustion releases a bag of bricks to topple over him as he isolates the murder board, Martha having slid out of view. Her hands rub out his shoulders, both of them looking on the screen together with her words crawling into his ears as they focus on the center picture of Beckett.
"If you love her, you'll give her that much…even if you think she doesn't deserve it."
His smile almost makes it into a laugh, but it's only a huff. She deserves the world. That's why it's so funny.
Deep down, he still wants to give her the world.
A/N: Just some clarifications - this is more of an Always AU. I know I previously said Undead Again also, but it's just the essence of that episode weaved in here. Secondly, this story is already written out. That's what I meant by complete. 10 chapters total. That's why none of my WIP have been updated. This one is important to me artistically because it's showcasing an important aspect to our beloved characters, so I really invested my time in this fic. Hopefully it'll show by the end. Thank you for reading :) bless.