"So Javi said Castle donated two hundred bucks to the Christmas party," Lanie said carefully.

"Yeah," Beckett replied, feeling the same stirring of unease she'd already experienced several times today.

They were sitting in the coffee shop a block from the precinct, where they tended to meet on the rare occasion that their schedules allowed an impromptu break during the working day. It was late afternoon, and neither of them had much else to do besides paperwork. Beckett had coffee in front of her, and Lanie had hot chocolate.

"He also said that Castle didn't buy a ticket," Lanie continued, now looking up at her friend.

"He's having a quieter Christmas this year," Beckett replied.

"Quieter?"

Beckett shrugged. "That's what he said." There was silence for a few moments before Lanie leaned forward slightly.

"And what does that mean, exactly?"

Beckett sighed, and shook her head. "I have no idea. I asked him. He just said he wasn't in the mood for dancing."

Lanie's left eyebrow shot up. "Mm-hmm. When it's a whole month away. And this is Castle we're talking about; Mister Any-Excuse-To-Wear-A-Tux."

Beckett pursed her lips and frowned. "I don't know what to tell you. He said—"

"—that he's not in the mood," Lanie interrupted. "When you asked him. About going to a ball, that you're gonna be at. That he could have asked you to be his date for."

Beckett huffed in annoyance, taking a swallow of her coffee before putting the mug back down a little too forcefully. "What do you want me to say, Lanie?"

Lanie sat back in her chair, folded her arms, and gave Beckett her best Girl, I'ma smack you look.

"What?" Beckett said, and Lanie rolled her eyes.

"You don't think that's just a little bit unusual."

Beckett broke eye contact for a moment, her gaze flicking down to the table top. She shrugged.

Lanie rolled her eyes again. "You don't think that's really, really not like him at all?"

Beckett met her friend's eyes again, and this time her own expression was of worry. "…I guess so, yeah."

"You guess so," Lanie said, her voice dripping with the frustrated sarcasm that always accompanied the topic of Beckett and Castle's behaviour towards each other.

"Well what do you think it is?" Beckett asked, in an exaggeratedly casual tone of voice. She made a show of reaching for her coffee and taking another sip, as if they were just discussing the weather.

Now it was Lanie's turn to sigh, and she noticed that her friend looked up at her again, with the worried expression back in full force.

"What I think, girl," Lanie said, picking up her mug and looking across at Beckett through the wisps of steam that curled into the air from the surface of the hot liquid, "is that you oughtta find out."

Castle left the precinct for the day only fifteen minutes after Beckett had gone to meet Lanie for one of their occasional coffee breaks together. He'd bid a cheerful farewell to Ryan and Esposito without giving them time to draw him into a conversation, then disappeared down the stairwell instead of waiting for the elevator.

Beckett had been giving him periodic looks throughout the day. There had been a question in her eyes, and she was wearing her puzzling-out-a-case expression.

Good luck with that, he thought. He wasn't going to offer any more insight into his reasons for not attending the ball next month. He was free to do what he wanted, after all, and it was just a work-related social event. He wasn't under any obligation to make sure she wasn't the fifth wheel. If she wanted a date for the evening, she'd have no trouble finding someone else.

The thought made his pace slow for a moment, as he wove a path through pedestrians on the sidewalk, but then he made a point of speeding up again. A brief image of Demming flashed through his mind, and then of Josh Davidson. He didn't think she was still in touch with either of them, but he supposed that he didn't really know either way.

Still, he could picture it. Not that he needed to; he could remember seeing her with each of them. How relaxed and at ease she'd been. How willing to be seen like that, even in front of work colleagues. But if he tried to do so much as keep his hand on the small of her back for more than a moment, he got a flinch and an irritated look, and she stepped away, quickly glancing around to check that no-one else had noticed.

I'm not chasing anymore, Castle thought, but the tension in his jaw quickly faded, to be replaced with a black mood that hung over him like the ominous-looking clouds above the city.

The temperature had dropped, and there were plenty of taxis around, but right now he just felt like walking.

Beckett returned to the precinct before 5PM, to find Castle gone. Ryan relayed the news that her partner apparently had some chores to take care of in town before dinner time, and had sent his apologies.

There wasn't much left of the working day, and a case hadn't come in, so Beckett busied herself with administrative work for half an hour or so before beginning to slowly pack up. She briefly considered going by the loft on her way home, but there was no telling whether he'd be back there yet, and she didn't want to call ahead to check. They just didn't do that kind of thing.

And he doesn't miss formal social occasions, she thought. They're one of his favourite things. Oh he certainly pretended to find them tiresome, but he was in his element when dressed to the nines and glad-handing, smiling and effortlessly charming.

For the tenth time that day, she tried to think if she'd done anything to annoy him before the subject of the ball came up, but it had literally been the first thing they'd talked about. So whatever was bothering him had to go further back. She tried to think if there had been anything over the weekend, but they'd only exchanged a couple of texts, and those were innocuous.

She frowned, and then shook her head. She could try to subtly interrogate him again tomorrow. On a whim, she took her phone out of her pocket and tapped out a quick message, and sent it.

With a brief glance towards the empty chair beside her desk, she shrugged on her coat and took her purse from the large drawer in her desk, then left the precinct.

Castle glanced around from his contemplation of the cityscape beyond his office window when he heard the chirp of a notification on his phone. He yawned, then turned from the window and retrieved the device from his desk, quickly unlocking it and bringing up the new message.

Hope you got everything done. See you tomorrow.

He thumbed the power button to lock the device and switch the screen off, then set the phone down on his desk. His hand remained on it for several moments, but eventually he straightened, and turned once more towards the window.