A/n): Enjoy D.
Chapter 3
"Bricks and Stones"
Beckett & Bricks
Kate sat at the back corner booth at Rossi's Bistro she had been trying to shake the nightmare from the night before. Work, which would normally have given her shelter, was not helping. She was in a decidedly melancholy mood. Ryan and Esposito had gone to chase don a couple of leads on a cold case so she had decided that she would treat herself to Rossi's for lunch. She had not been here since she and Alexis had eaten here what seemed like a lifetime ago.
"Why Detective Beckett what a delightful surprise, to see you here"
She looked up to see Benjamin Smythe standing beside the Table. Despite her melancholy she smiled. He was just under six feet tall and was dressed in a light grey, Italian suit. She was surprised to see that he was growing a goatee.
"Mr. Smythe.: she returned.
"Please Detective, you wound me. Must we be on such formal terms."
"Well you called me Detective."
"Touché', but when last we met we were on opposite sides of an interrogation table, with me right in your crosshairs."
"Well we are not there now." Kate rejoined
"All too true, My apologies…. Would you prefer Kate or Catherine?"
"Kate, please, not even my father calls me Catherine. Can you join me?"
"Why thank you Kate, it would be my honor." Bricks sat down opposite her.
"So how are you and Ricky doing? I've noticed that the two of you have been able to stay below the rumormonger's radar."
"Well we haven't seen each other in over a month," Kate said bitterly.
"Oh, Heavens no, you and Ricky didn't part ways. Why that's terrible. I must speak to him most strongly. He has made a grave error."
"No, Bricks, it's not that. He has been on a book tour, He has been out of the city for over a month."
"Ah, well that is good to hear. I would be most displeased if Ricky had broken your heart." Bricks confided.
"How did you and he get to be so close? Surely it wasn't that the other boys were picking you."
"Ah yes, well if I remember correctly we were in the 4th grade. It was my first time at a boarding school…"
That's a little young for boarding school." Kate inquired.
"Yes. I suppose that it is a little young but my parents had discoursed that I was different. Not my orientation, but that I that I was a troubled youth. Ricky was at the school because his mother had been involved in a traveling theater group. Truthfully I think that even back then I knew that my attraction was to my gender, but that is another story. Anyway Ricky and I were in the same dorm. It was not like a college dorm room, but a large hall with a dozen bunk beds. I was given the bed next to Ricky. Well-being so young and feeling very sorry for myself. I was, it pains me to say, sniveling"
Kate giggled at the thought on Ben sniveling.
"Well, in the middle of the night I woke to Ricky returning to his bed."
"Gone to see a girl I suppose." Kate guessed.
"Yes and no, he had snuck down to the kitchens and procured a couple of ice cream cones. He had sweet talked them out of one of the matrons down there. He gave me one and proceeded to give me the lay of the land as it were. Then told me a grand tale of how he had been captured by pirates and how he was a noble's son. I don't.t think he intended me to believe it, during his description of the island the pirates were living on, I fell asleep. And over the next month whenever I couldn't sleep he would regale me with another tale. I even got to the point that I would ask him for another story whenever I started to get upset. His stories were quite good especially for an nine year old."
"I believe you about the stories, but I can't see Richard being that intuitive."
"Ah, you are not looking closely enough, and if the truth be told I was a very loud sniveler. He could have done it just to shut me up."
"Ben," Kate inquired, "I know that Richard had some sort of trauma as a child. Do you know what it was?"
"Alas dear lady, that was something that he has not shared with even me. I can tell you it happened the summer of our eleventh year. He came to school that fall older, and more introspective. It took months before he would relax and start acting like himself. He never spoke of it to me or anyone, but I do know that it was then that the notebooks started."
"The notebooks?" Beckett asked.
"Yes he brought a stack of notebooks from home that year and whenever he had a spare moment he would be writing in them. He showed me one; it was part novel part diary and part automatic writing."
"Automatic Writing?"
"Yes, he would just start writing random words and then he would gradually begin to make sense. He would write things like dog ,cat, ball, track and such then he would write a poem or short story even story ideas."
Beckett decided to broach the subject that had been in the forefront of her mind all day. "Benny… I was talking to Rick last night and he told me that you saved his life.
"Oh, I was wondering why you were being so pensive today. Ricky had saved both my dignity and my life by then so I was just returning the favor.
"What happened?"
"It was sometime right around Halloween of our freshman year, He had called me mid-week, to tell me that he had just broken up with Tabatha, strange girl, New age religions were the rage and Tabatha was in the midst of all of them, I think that she finally turned Wiccan. Anyway she and Ricky were like oil and water. He was mercurial and she was fire. Apparently they were sexually compatible, but little else."
"Now that I believe, "Kate stated.
Ben smiled. "You know how Ricky can be when he sees someone taking themselves too seriously; he will use his acid with to skewer them."
"Oh yes, "Kate has seen both suspect and cop squrm under the barrage of Castle's wit. Will came to mind.
"Well she was and he did. But I think it was the rejection letter that really sent him spiraling down. Three of the four were just the standard 'Thank You but No thank you.' But the forth was sent by someone who wanted to strongly discourage Ricky, it was hand written and downright vile in language. It said in no uncertain terms that he had no talent."
"Were they ever wrong."
"I quite agree. Ricky, the poor fellow, was devastated. When he called me I could hear how broken he was, so I booked a flight right then, My parents made me go to Harvard, And of course. Ricky was here in New York. I got there as quickly as I could. When I got there he was so deathly pale and the water was so red, I thought I was too late. His pulse was weak but he was still among the living. The EMT's raced him to the hospital. It was touch and go for several hours but as you know he pulled through."
Silence reigned for a few minutes, both lost in their silent thoughts. Kate that she had seen some of the pain of Castles past while he was recovering from his gunshot wound, but could hardly believe that Richard could sink so low."
"Kate, put it out of your mind, He is not the same man he was back then. You have helped him cope with his tragedies es and he is a better man for it. If you could have only heard him the day after you met him, you would know. He called me, truly excited. He said that he had me the perfect woman. She was smart, driven, a fan of his work and someone who wouldn't put up with his antics. He used another word but one does not use such words in the company of a lady. Come. Let us leave all things dark and allow me to regale with the tale of when one of Ricky's rivals stole his clothes and towel from the showers and made Ricky walk wet and naked back to his room during parent's visitation one year."
They ordered lunch and Bricks wove more cheerful tales of Castle's youth. Kate began to relax and her mood lifted as Bricks recounted several pranks perpetrated by and on Castle. By the end of lunch Kate had put last night's nightmare behind her.
As she was walking back to the 12th, her phone rang. It was Alexis. She checked her watch and was shocked to see that she had spent over two hours out of the precinct and in Bricks Company.
"Alexis, Hi!"
"Hey Kate, is this a bad time?"
"No.. No, I am just heading back to the 12th."
"I called you to ask a favor, you know Dad is coming home tomorrow night…"
"Yes, we had plans to get together this weekend."
"Oh good, I just got a call from Mom. She called to remind me that this was our spa weekend. We planned this last spring, a weekend at a spa in the Hamptons."
"It sounds nice."
"It would be if dad hadn't been away for a month. Anyway there is no way to postpone the trip. Could you pick Dad up from the airport?"
"Sure Alexis, and don't worry your Dad will still be here when you get back. Black Pawn probably won't do another book tour until the next Nikki Heat book gets published."
"We can always hope." Alexis agreed….
A/N): As always please forgive the typo's and grammar. Thank you to all who read my work. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it.
