"Hey! Wait up!"
Kate stops in front of the apartment building as Ryan and Esposito head through the door. She looks back to see Castle untangling himself from a cab, a bright red gift bag swinging from his hand.
Seriously? They're at a crime scene, for God's sake.
"That had better not be for me," she says, pointing at him and his stupid gift bag as he jogs up beside her.
Castle skids to a halt and pulls the door opened, flashing her a happy grin. Today his scarf is blue with little embroidered snowflakes.
"Of course it's for you, Beckett. I have a bet to win, no time to waste."
Kate steps into the lobby and stalks toward the elevator without acknowledging him, because maybe if she ignores him he'll stop. She stabs at the elevator button with perhaps more force than is strictly required. Castle sidles up beside her, the red of the gift bag bright in her peripheral vision.
She lasts about five seconds. "How did you even have time to come up with that?" she blurts out. This is not ignoring him. "You made that bet yesterday." Dammit.
"Twenty-four hours, Beckett! Plenty of time!"
Kate turns around just so he can see her roll her eyes. "Don't you ever do any work at all? No, don't answer."
"Rescuing your holiday spirit is the most important work I could possibly be doing." Castle holds out the bag. "I want you to be happy."
He sounds so sincere that Kate is surprised into taking it. She holds it away from her body and ignores the little flutter in her chest. "This doesn't mean you've won or anything. I'm only opening this because you can't carry it into a crime scene."
"You're right, that would be totally rude and inappropriate." Castle squeezes his hands into excited fists as they step on the elevator. "Open it!"
Kate reaches into the bag and pulls out something small and light, carefully wrapped in red and white striped tissue paper. It's lumpy, so at least it's not more jewelry, and it doesn't feel expensive, thank the Lord. She peels the tissue back, oddly reluctant to tear it. When she sees what's inside her heart gives a traitorous little bump. In the middle of her palm sits a purple plastic pony, its mane and tail a silky pink and purple shot through with glitter strands.
"It's a My Little Pony!" Castle bursts out. He's almost shimmering with delight, the doofus.
"I don't know what that is," Kate lies, because there may or may not be a shoe box somewhere full of My Little Ponies left over from when she was eight, but she's not telling Castle that. It will only encourage him.
"I don't believe you," Castle sing songs, still smiling. "A little Kate Beckett who loved horses? You know you had twenty of these." He bumps his shoulder with hers. "None like this one, though. Look at the cutie mark."
"How do you even know what a cutie mark is?" Kate asks, turning the pony over to study its flank before she even realizes what she's doing. Instead of one of the My Little Pony character cutie marks, this one has a tiny picture of a police badge. Kate stares, unblinking. He got her a police My Little Pony. She won't be charmed by this. She won't.
"Duh. Alexis," Castle answers, punching elevator buttons instead of looking at her, thank god, so he doesn't see her trying to control her face. "She must have had every single pony. Don't tell her I told you, but we still watch the show sometimes. She DVR's it."
"Really," Kate says. She's going for sardonic, but somehow her voice comes out all stupid and soft, and it's just that Castle's a really good father, okay? She just…it's just nice that he's such a good dad. It doesn't mean that she likes his ridiculous, adorable, personalized pony. She twirls the soft tail around her thumb and rubs the badge with the tip of her finger.
"Well, it's a good show." Castle's cutting his eyes sideways at her, the corners of his mouth tilted up, like he's onto to her, like he can tell she likes it.
"So, are you a Brony, Castle?" Kate asks to cover the too-loud thump of her heart. As they step off the elevator, she can see Ryan and Esposito at the end of the hall outside the opened door of an apartment.
"Ha! I knew you were well-versed in pony lore." Castle looks so happy his eyes are actually twinkling.
"Whatever. I can't believe you did this." She shakes her head. He's not getting to her, nooooo, not even if this whole My Little Pony situation is oddly adorable. "How did you do this?"
"I know this guy…" Castle starts.
"You? Know a guy?" Kate teases, and what, what, what is she doing? Because that sounds like flirting.
Castle's smile stretches even more. "Yeah," he says, his voice sort of low, and is he standing really close? He seems close. "He's a hardcore Brony, makes all sorts of custom ponies."
"And you just knew about this guy off the top of your head and got him to make you this pony in the last 24 hours?"
"Weeeellll," Castle tilts his head, his eyes fixed on hers, and it's really, really hot in this hallway, right? The sleeve of Castle's jacket is brushing her arm and his proximity is making it hotter. She can feel her cheeks getting flushed. "Maybe I already had this pony."
"For who?" Kate gets out, even though her mouth is suddenly dry. From the heat, not, not…anything else.
"Whom."
"Shut up. Why did you have this pony? How long?" And shit, that sounds just a little too intense, a tad too hot and bothered, but that's because it's a thousand degrees in here, anyone would be. And yes, maybe it's suddenly really, really important that she know for whom Castle bought this pony, but that's only because…because…whatever, it just is.
Castle shifts his weight, moving a little out of her personal space, and shrugs. "It just reminded me of you, is all."
Kate accidentally steps back in, close enough that she can feel the heat of his body again and okay, obviously she's going crazy, but she just…"How long?" she asks again, her voice pitched tight, and what is wrong with her? It's just a stupid toy. That - oh god - he bought for no reason other than because it reminded him of her.
"It might have been, I don't know, four months ago?" Now Castle's looking at her from under his ridiculous eyelashes. Eyelashes that are apparently magic, because they make his eyes look startlingly blue, even in the dim light of this crappy hallway.
"Four months. You bought this for me four months ago and have been saving it for Christmas? " Kate tries very hard to tone down the pitchiness and not sound like his dumb, sweet, thoughtful gesture is simultaneously charming her and scaring the shit out of her. "Why?"
Castle's eyes are back on her, appraising. Finally he shrugs. "Because you're my friend. And friendship is magical. Just like these ponies." He waggles his eyebrows at her, and it isn't cute, except it totally is. "You know what else is magic? Christmas. And me winning this bet."
"You have not won the bet." Kate scoffs, but something in her relaxes as his words put them back on familiar ground, reminding her that he's doing this to win the bet.
"But you want it," Castle smugs. "I can tell. You want to put that pony on your desk and brush its mane when no one is looking."
"You're ridiculous," Kate says, twisting another loop of the tail around her thumb.
"Okay." Castle gives the biggest, fakest sigh ever. "If you really don't like it I can take it back - "
He reaches for the pony and Kate's body is clearly operating without her consent because she holds the pony tighter and steps out of his reach. "No, I -" Oh no.
"Ha!" Castle points a finger at her. "You do like it! I'm totally winning this bet!" He does something goofy with his feet that's probably supposed to be a victory jig, and he doesn't look so much smug anymore as he does gleeful, like maybe her happiness really was his whole goal, for real.
"Whatever, Castle," Kate says, but her stomach feels fluttery and she's biting her lip to keep from smiling and the pony is clutched in her hand, the silky tail still wrapped around her thumb. There are Christmas lights around a doorway across from them, the blinking colors making even this dingy hallway suddenly seem sort of festive.
"Yo, Beckett." Esposito sticks his head out of the apartment at the end of the hall. "You need to get in here, this one's a mess."
A mess. A huge, bloody, tragic mess.
Kate rubs the back of her wrist against her forehead and straightens up. Beside her, Lanie steps back as the the guys bag the body, a woman in her late thirties, fatally shot when she and her kids walked in on a robbery in progress. Lanie squeezes Kate's elbow as she heads towards the door but says nothing, and Kate is grateful.
"They took the kids to the hospital." Castle's behind her, his voice thin, hesitant. Wearily, Kate turns and finds him washed out, his merriment and fun from before all faded away. Watching three children sob for their dead mother in front of their Christmas tree will do that.
Kate just nods. There's a lump in her pocket where she hastily shoved the pony when she stepped into the apartment. She's embarrassed now to remember the brief, dumb delight it gave her in the hall.
She almost gave the pony to the youngest child, a five-year-old little girl covered in tears and snot and confusion. The sight of the girl's baffled, disbelieving grief was such an overwhelming reminder than Kate would have done anything to stop it, to help her. Her hand was half-way to her pocket when Kate stopped, horrified at herself. The kid's mother was just murdered in front of her face. A plastic toy won't fix it. Nothing will.
"Kate?" Castle says now. He's watching her, his eyes hesitant and worried. "The kids weren't hurt. They're going to be okay."
Kate sucks in sharp breath and laughs, a brittle snap of sound. "No. They won't."
She turns for the door, needing out, needing air, abruptly desperate to get away from Castle and his Pollyanna outlook that money and charm and stupid joke gifts make everything okay. She reaches in her pocket and shoves the plastic pony into Castle's hand as she pushes past him into the hall. Three doors down the cheap Christmas lights are still blinking, blinking, blinking.
"I can't take this," she mutters. And Kate doesn't know if she means the pony, or Christmas, or the faces of those motherless children who will never be able to look at Christmas lights again.
Maybe all of it.
