January 2010
Beckett cast an eye toward Ryan and Esposito, but each of them were lost in their own world. Esposito tossed his baseball from hand to hand as he stared at his screen, and Ryan was hunched over his own computer. She would have laid down money that his brow was furrowed, and she grinned.
Cold cases sucked.
That didn't mean they didn't suck you in.
She looked back at the paperwork on her desk, comparing it to the information she'd compiled. There was a hell of a lot more room for omissions and half-truths when a case was a decade old, but laying it all out as if it was a regular case never hurt, and the visual she got from a timeline on a white board was always helpful in piecing together the witness statements someone else had taken.
She sneaked another look at the boys before sliding her desk drawer open and pulling her cell from it. She launched a new browser window, bringing up a world clock with a quick google search, her lips quirking upwards in spite of her attempt to school her own features. She would have to figure out how to install a duel clock on- she shut that thought down before it could play out in its entirety; speaking to Castle last night had been an anomaly, it wasn't going to become a habit.
Meanwhile, as dedicated as she was to making sure it didn't become a habit, it would be kind of fun to include Castle on this one. It wasn't three in the morning there, so she wouldn't be returning that favor, but what could it hurt, to message him? She had his number now, and noon in New York meant it was evening in London. If he could interrupt her while she was sleeping, she could sure as heck shoot off a message even if it disturbed his day.
Okay, so I've got a body in the river, life jacket on. Single GSW to the head… 12 years ago. Got any theories?
The message came back almost instantly.
Oh, I like it. Okay, I'm in. You IDed him?
Luckily. I wouldn't want to be running a cold case on a Jane Doe.
Life jacket, so she was on a boat… witnesses?
Beckett nodded, her thumb skimming the phone's keyboard as she filled in the details for Castle.
All so drunk that not a single statement corroborates. Plus, it was NYE… so fireworks drowned out sounds of gunshots.
NYE… romantic.
Her response was automatic, shutting down his distracting train of thought before he could get carried away. Not for my Jane Doe.
Right. Of course not. Wait- a boat in the middle of winter? How is that a thing?
You've never cruised the Hudson on NYE? I would have thought you'd love that!
I prefer parties on boats in the summer. My ideal NYE is a little more intimate.
Beckett flashed back to her own New Year's Eve a few days ago. She and Lanie had shared a bottle of wine at her place, lamenting their single lives and studiously avoiding any and all mention of the writer and the impact he'd had on Kate's life. It hadn't been anything special, and they'd called it quits not twenty minutes after midnight; being on call had put quite the dampener on both their plans. But an intimate New Year's Eve… That sounded good. Kate blushed. No. That didn't sound good, it sounded… normal. Smart, even, to stay indoors and avoid the chill.
She sighed. January was here, and the bite of winter was deep in her veins. The usual mantras she repeated and the vigils that she held were doing little to keep the cold at bay. Everywhere she turned, the reminders of just how lonely she was - and how much she missed her mom - confronted her.
Sleep, too, had been an unfaithful companion. At least, that had been the case until last night, and as her phone buzzed again with another message from across the Atlantic she managed a small smile.
Who was she kidding? Reopening communication with Castle the night before - that conversation alone had been solely responsible for the good night's sleep she'd managed.
Really? This is the moment you tell me your ideal New Year's Eve? Even as she hit send she wondered at what exactly she was doing. Was that a retort, or was she… flirting with him?
A retort.
Definitely a retort. After all, they were meant to be building theory together, working on a case, and besides, Castle was in London.
Castle was in London.
The smile fell from her face as reality hit, her stomach sinking over the situation.
Castle wasn't her partner anymore, and he wasn't across town in his loft. If she called him, he wouldn't catch a cab, he wouldn't meet her at a scene, and he wouldn't be arriving coffee in hand.
She had to do this alone.
Why, Detective… His response was punctuated with a winking smiley face, and she swallowed.
I gotta go. Beckett hit send before she could second-guess herself, shoving the phone back into the desk and shutting the drawer more firmly than strictly necessary, the bang causing Esposito to jerk his head up, a question in his eyes.
She shook her head at him, and he held her gaze a half-second longer, before nodding and returning his attention to the screen in front of him.
She'd worked alone before.
She could - and would - do it again.
Huh. Beckett's messages had just stopped. Had she gotten a body drop? And if so, why wouldn't she just tell him? After all, if they were going to exchange messages about a cold case, they might as well take on an active one.
Had they really been texting about the case, though? He glanced back at his phone, the exchange still on the screen.
Really? This is the moment you tell me your ideal New Year's Eve?
"Dad!"
"Sorry, Alexis, what is it?"
"You're not listening to a word I've been saying!" his daughter exclaimed, and he winced. That was fair.
"Sorry. I was, uh-" He shot another look at his phone, its display dull. "Distracted. I was distracted. Sorry, go ahead."
"So Emma asked me to go away with her family this weekend, and can I go?"
He frowned. This was a factor he hadn't taken into consideration in their hasty intercontinental move. He didn't know any of Alexis' friends, not really. He'd met Emma for five minutes this afternoon, a wispy girl with a big smile, but he didn't know her family, didn't know anything about her. Not the way he'd known Paige and her mom for the last decade. Years of volunteering in his daughter's elementary school classroom meant he was familiar with the quirks of her friends' families.
Emma - and more to the point, her parents - was an unknown quantity.
"I- I need to speak to Emma's mother, to check that it's okay," he countered, and Alexis grimaced, her expression showing concession to defeat. "Just to make sure," he added, and she nodded.
"I know. But, Dad? If this was a student exchange, you wouldn't have even met Emma!"
He reached across the table, and laid his hand over hers, managing a weak joke. "Are you trying to send me to an early grave?"
She laughed, dismissing his concerns. "The way you've gone through the Cadbury chocolate since Christmas? I don't think it's my social life that's going to send you to an early grave!"
"Hey!" He feigned mock indignation. "Alexis, we are in a foreign country. It's our duty to try as much candy and chocolate as possible."
"Uh-huh. You do know that they sell Cadbury in New York, right?" Alexis raised her eyebrows at him, and he chuckled.
"Well, it's different here," he defended, his eyes darting back to his cell, its screen still dim. Alexis sighed, snatching the phone and holding it in front of him.
"Seriously. What is going on, Dad? You've been jumpy all night. Are you okay? Are you-" her eyes narrowed. "Are you messaging a woman?"
"It's not like that," he protested. "I- it's not-"
"When did you even meet someone?" Alexis asked. "Is it someone from the secret service? Have you found someone to shadow? Did you-"
"Stop!" Castle reached out for the phone, glaring at Alexis as she smirked. "No. I did not meet anyone at the secret service." His lip curled at the memory of just how tedious the entire situation was. Whatever he managed to write about Bond would be fiction, that was for sure, because any hint of reality, and his readers would be asleep before the end of the first chapter.
"Then why are you so obsessed with checking your phone?"
"I'm not obsessed!" He stood and slid the cell into his back pocket, turning to the pantry. "Now. What do you want for dinner?"
"We could order in? Emma was telling me about an Indian place around the corner, and-"
"Well, if Emma said, we'd better try it," he teased.
Alexis shrugged at him, pulling her own phone out, and bringing up a menu. "Looks good, right?"
"It does," he agreed. Maybe it was for the best that Alexis was so taken with Emma. After all, the last thing he needed was for her to fall in love with a boy and mope around when they returned home in the summer. "You want to call, and I can go pick it up?"
Alexis nodded, dialing and walking across the room as she made the order. He took the opportunity to slide his cell back out of his pocket. Maybe Beckett had messaged. Maybe he'd accidentally set the phone to silent, and-
"Dad! For real, who has you this wound up?" Alexis asked as she ended her call, and he shrugged, sinking back onto the chair.
"If you must know, I was messaging with Beckett."
Alexis' expression softened as she regarded him. "You've been talking to Beckett? But that's- that's great. I thought you two were-" She waved a hand in front of her. "Well, never mind." Her grin grew wider. "But… Beckett? Really? And you're on edge like that?"
"No! Alexis! It's not… anything." It wasn't. It was two friends texting casually. And casual was the right word for it; he hadn't heard from her for three hours. "We just- she was asking my advice on a case, and-"
"Oh!" Alexis beamed, apparently entirely thrilled with this development. "I know how much you've missed them, and now- you're long distance consulting? That's great!"
Alexis knew how much he missed them? He hadn't even admitted as much to himself until yesterday, so how could she possibly know? "I wouldn't call it consulting."
He wouldn't call it anything.
Not yet.
But he couldn't deny the buzz he'd felt as they'd exchanged messages earlier, not to mention just how good it had felt to hear her voice last night, the sleep infused note to her speech softening her usually snappy responses. He smiled at the memory, his eyes half closing as he pictured her in her bedroom. Had she flipped the light on, staying ensconced between the sheets? Had she been snuggled in warm winter pajamas or - his jaw dropped as he considered - did she actually sleep… in the nude?
"Dad!"
"Yes?" He jerked his head up, focusing on Alexis.
Way to kill the moment.
"I think it's time to go get the food?"
"Sure." He smiled at her, standing and picking up his wallet before grabbing his jacket from the hall closet. "Back in a minute."
"I think it's great you're talking to Beckett again," she called after him, and he nodded. Yeah. Assuming Beckett spoke to him again after today's messages, it would be great.
He managed to wait until after dinner to check his phone again, and Alexis, for her part, had avoided all mention of Beckett or New York for the duration of the meal. Dishes had been stacked in the dishwasher, and Alexis had disappeared into her bedroom, claiming she had to study.
The persistent chiming of her phone, chased by an upbeat ring tone told a different story, and as the tinkle of her laughter made its way through the thin walls, he grimaced. That did not sound like she was talking to Emma, or to any girl friend.
Castle carried his laptop through the apartment and sat down at the desk in the study nook off his bedroom. The cursor blinked at him and he stared at the blank page. James Bond was not Nikki Heat. Hell, James Bond wasn't even Derrick Storm.
Not for the first time the echo of his words to Paula played over in his head. I'm trying to launch my own character, why would I want to get involved with someone else's? The allure of Bond - and the allure of chasing a childhood dream in London - was fading fast.
Bond might have been the reason he'd taken up writing, but it was first Storm, and later Nikki, who had opened in him genuine confidence in his own characters, both of them as real to him as anybody in his immediate life. Those two come alive on the page, overtaking his earlier books' characters, and he sighed.
Nikki wasn't meant to be done. Heat Wave was meant to be the first in a series, not a standalone. Nikki was no Rachel Lyons from A Skull at Springtime, nor Adam Parel from Hell Hath No Fury. No, she had depth. She had a life of her own. She had longevity.
She had an author who loved her.
An author who could write her, he corrected himself.
She was fictional; he couldn't love her.
But he couldn't lie to himself either. He was anything but done with Nikki, and whether or not Black Pawn would publish another Heat novel had no bearing on his current reality.
He cleared his throat, coming to a decision and closing the current document, pulling up a new one and entitling it Nikki II.
The title would come, in time.
For now, he had a story dancing in his brain that begged to be bled out from his fingertips onto the keyboard.
Beckett opened the front door to her apartment, trudging in and kicking her shoes off. She pulled at her jacket as she headed through to her bedroom. Flinging it over the back of the chair, she let herself stop for the first time since they'd caught the case.
The slow start to the morning had taken an abrupt turn when they'd been called to a double homicide uptown after lunch, and she and the boys had spent the rest of the day running down evidence.
Her cold case white board had been pushed aside into an unused conference room as the current case took pride of place in the bull pen, identical faces of murdered twins Stephanie and Veronica Butler staring at them for the rest of the afternoon. Their leads had petered out, so with the promise of an early start, she'd dismissed the boys, following them from the precinct at six.
Even as she'd thrown herself into the case, the exchange she'd had with Castle niggled at her, and she'd itched to text him, and now that she had left work the impulse grew.
She'd ended their exchange without warning, she knew that, and she'd checked her phone a few times during the day hoping - wondering - if he would message again.
He hadn't, but she couldn't deny the ball was in her court.
She sighed again, the audible groan leaving her lips and filling the room for a second before she found herself in silence once again, and she took the phone from her pocket, tossing it onto her bed before shrugging off her shirt and pants and making her way into the bathroom. She twisted the faucet, dipping her hand into the flow of water to check it was hot enough before tipping bubble bath into the tub, tiptoeing across the tiles to light a couple of the candles that lined the shelves and windowsills.
A bath, mid-case, when she knew she'd be up at the crack of dawn wasn't her usual M.O. - she should have gone straight to sleep - but the luxury she was allowing herself brought a smile to her lips.
She threw a look at the tub - almost full - before padding back to her bedroom, the cold tiles giving way to the soft carpet. Biting down on her lip, she eyed the phone she'd so readily thrown onto her bed. She tore her gaze away from it, turning to go into the bathroom once more, but as she did so, she caught sight of herself in the mirror. She was still in the sexy underwear that she'd chosen so deliberately this morning.
With a soft huff and a shake of her head, she scooped the phone up, finally striding into the bathroom and shutting the taps off. She shed the underwear, stepping into the tub, her phone still in her hands, the metal warm against her flushed skin.
Beckett sank down in the water, her eyes closing as the heat enveloped her, inhaling deeply and then letting herself exhale slowly before opening her eyes again.
She set the phone on the stand beside the bath, bringing up her recent call list and selecting his name. He wouldn't have to know she was in the bath, but if he was still awake and took her call, perhaps - just perhaps - the sound of his voice after today's horrific case would bring her the same peace it had last night.
A/N: Thank you guys! And all the hearts to Kylie and Jamie for their beta! x