Sorry for the wait guys, exams and graduation ahhh! This is pretty short, but hopefully better than nothing. Oh and before we move on to the chapter, I want to plug a fic that I am co-writing with TheGreyWolfGhost called 'The Heat Draws the Storm'! You should go check it out
"Where did you even get all this stuff?" Beckett asked with an amused tone, though she was not at all surprised that he had a box of ghost detecting equipment. Castle had arrived from the loft, struggling with a big brown box that she had certainly never come across before. He had then proceeded to dump the contents onto the big table in the break room and was rummaging through the various gadgets and gizmos; toys in other words.
"Oh, I know a guy" he answered, too distracted by the EVP recorder he was attempting to pull from the pile.
"Wow Castle, could you be any vaguer?"
"What? I know lots of guys. You know this." He stopped trying to untangle the mass of wires to look up at her, a sly grin on his face. "If you are interested, I even know a guy that makes custom-made leather bon…" The rest was muffled as she slapped a hand over his mouth and shot him a death glare.
"Will you shush! Time and a place Castle, and the break room at the precinct is not the place."
"Does that mean that this is a conversation we can have?" his eyes had gone from teasing, to shock and a little arousal.
She shook her head at him, though there was a smile there. "Gotta have some way of cheering you up when all that thing records is the sound of a bunch of cops munching donuts," she teased. "What does that thing even do?"
"It records ghosts." Duh. "Seriously have you not seen The Sixth Sense?"
"Of course I have Castle, but it's a movie…fiction."
"The story might have been fiction, but that doesn't mean that the ghosts weren't. I'm telling you, this is going to explain all the weird stuff that has been going on."
"Woah Castle, forget Robin, you are Inspector Gadget" Ryan called out as he walked into the break room, stopping suddenly at the small electrical store that seemed to have taken up shop in there.
Castle swung round to the detective with his eyes alight, "Ooo that would be so cool! Go go gadget extension arms" He flung his arms out in the direction of his coffee mug and his face screwed up in concentration. A pause. "Ok it needs some work" he shrugged before turning back to his box and Beckett.
"Robin?" she murmured to him, an eyebrow raised. He waved her off mumbling something to do with Lycra and Catwoman but his attention was firmly back on the recorder.
"Ha. Done." He straightened up, a look of satisfaction and excitement on his face. "Time to catch me some ghosts!" he exclaimed and clapped his hands together.
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The next morning Castle was up bright and early for once. Normally, if Kate had stayed at the loft, she would be the first one up, leaving him in bed, while she showered and left for the precinct. He would follow at a more decent hour with a delivery of take-out coffee for her and baked goods for the boys. Of course, he argued that this was to keep up pretences with the Captain; if they arrived together all the time then surely she would know something was going on with them.
Today was different. He had practically dragged her out of bed, at 6am, hopping from foot to foot as she got ready. Ok, so she may have purposefully taken a bit longer in the shower, a bit longer doing her hair and make-up, a bit longer deciding what to wear. Though there was definitely something amiss at the precinct; that she thought she saw something in the window, she was not convinced that it was anything supernatural.
There is no such thing as ghosts.
She had said that maybe a hundred times in the space of 24 hours, but it has had little effect. In fact Castle has taken to ignoring her completely; chattering on about some ghost story he researched on his phone, a real life encounter on the Brooklyn Bridge, strange noises and lights in an abandoned building in Queens. She attempted to refute them all, but after Esposito filled Castle in to her reaction in the break room, he just raises an eyebrow, a smirk on his face, and a "Now Beckett, don't be saying things you don't believe. That's called lying."
Smug bastard.
Esposito will be on paperwork duty for the rest of the month.
"Castle, if you tell me to hurry up one more time, I am getting back into bed and starting all over again" she warned. He pouted but fell silent, shuffling off into the study, probably to his laptop and the numerous websites he had found on ghost encounters.
Fifteen minutes later, the detective emerges, coat on, boots on, keys in hand. "You coming Castle? I have been waiting by the door for the last ten minutes!" She gets a glower in return as he bolts up from his desk and ushers her out of the study to the front door.
"Can I drive?" he asks, bouncing from foot to foot, just like a nine year old.
By the time they get to the precinct, Beckett wished that she let him drive. Maybe that would have distracted him and stopped the crazy theories and 'what ifs' spurting from his mouth every five seconds. She had now taken to just nodding or grunting. He wasn't interested in her responses to his theories, he was on a roll of wild speculation and she may as well not have even been there.
Ryan and Espo were already at their desks when they got out of the elevator, looking a little sleep deprived.
Beckett raised an eyebrow at them, "what are you doing here so early?"
"Oh Ryan couldn't wait to see if Castle caught any ghosts and I couldn't wait to laugh in both of their faces when all he manages to catch are the sounds of the night janitor sweeping the corridor!" Espo explained.
"The 12th doesn't even have a night janitor so if there are sounds of sweeping then joke's on you. Ghost Janitor." Castle shot back, giving Ryan a high five as he walked past to the break room.
Espo snorted, but followed his partner and Castle into the break room. This was going to be good.