When Kate got in, half an hour late, the next morning she looked like death warmed over. Castle watched from his seat beside her desk as she trudged, there really wasn't another word for it, across the floor and sat heavily in her chair. Castle smiled at her gently and pushed her coffee towards her. He received an ever so grateful smile before she guzzled half the cup in one mouthful.
"You either had a really good night, or a really bad one." He summarised slowly.
Kate glared at him, though the exhaustion clearly painted on her features dampened the desired affect.
"I'm just saying, this type of tired either comes from sex, or fighting. So, which is it?" He jested gently, trying to tease her out of her self. She looked as though she was either going to collapse and fall asleep right there on her desk, or burst into tears, and he really couldn't bare to watch either.
"Step off Castle." She murmured and he knew that if she was ever the tiniest fraction more awake, it would have a lot more bite to it. "Not today okay?" Castle nodded, leaning back in his chair to let her have those few inches more space, sensing that if he pushed her today, she'd end up saying something he'd regret. "Espo?" She called to the younger detective, who in turn looked up at her. "What have we got?" Esposito smiled.
"We solved it, confession and everything. He had a lover, two floors up from the crime scene." Kate shook her head, incredulous.
"So, he shot his girlfriend, and her girlfriend, and then left to sleep with his other girlfriend, until he phoned us, to say his girlfriend had been shot?" The Latin detective laughed.
"Yeah, pretty much." Kate shook her head again.
"Classy." She muttered, before finishing the other half of her coffee in one gulp. The detective stood and made his way over to her desk, leaning beside her right side as he leaned down so as not to be overheard by the entire precinct.
"Bad night?" He asked gently, piquing Castle's interest and drawing a sigh from Kate.
"Yeah." She murmured softly, eyes fixed on the now empty mug.
"Really bad night?" He continued softly, knowingly, and Kate sounded close to tears when she mumbled "yeah."
"You know, if you ever need a night off..." Kate nodded before thanking him. Esposito nodded back and squeezed her shoulder gently before going back to his own desk. Castle had a sudden urge to hold her as he watched Kate slump even further for a moment before getting to her feet and dragging herself to the break room, to get her second coffee in the ten minutes she'd been in the building.
He had no idea what was going on, but didn't like the sound of it.
He'd seen Beckett bone tired, exhaustion clinging to her like a second skin, before but he'd never heard her that close to tears because of it.
There was something else going on behind the scenes and he was now dying to find out. He wanted to support her because whatever had her not sleeping and nearly crying at her desk was clearly not good and it had him all sorts of worried.