Blinking hard to try and keep herself awake after a completely sleepless night, Beckett held her coffee mug tight in her hand and sat herself down at her desk in the bullpen of the twelfth precinct. After realizing she wasn't going to get to bed because she had felt so guilty for making her oldest friend practically burst into tears, she kept herself up going through old cold cases that she had kept through the years.
"Hey Castle," the Irish detective laughed. "You weren't supposed to come in today. What's up?"
The only woman on the team turned, her eyes bugging from their sockets at the sight of the sleep deprived man walking into the bullpen.
"Yeah," he huffed, coughing into his fisted hand before taking the chair he had always sat in and moved it to the side of Ryan's desk. "Emily and I thought it was good to take a breather for a day before jumping into the wedding planning?"
Esposito grinned to his friend from behind his computer screen. "Jitters, huh?"
"Something like that."
Beckett let her tongue flicker over her coffee covered lip, her eyes searching those of her friend when he turned to look her way. "Morning," she nodded.
Castle tried his best to let the anger he was still holding onto go before nodding back to the New York detective. "Good morning."
Settling down her coffee, the younger brunette turned fully in her chair and scooted just that much closer to her friend. "So," she smiled nervously, her voice whispered so no other officer could hear them. "Did Emily tell you about last night?"
"She did."
Beckett felt her chest constrict at the dullness she saw sitting behind her ex's eyes. "Castle, can I speak to you for a minute?"
The older man grunted as he sank further into his seat. "We are talking."
"In private." Her hands curled tighter around the arm of her desk chair when the writer did nothing to show he was acknowledging her. "Please?"
Castle forced himself not to roll his eyes as he stood, following his ex-girlfriend out of the bullpen and into the break room, watching as the detective shut the two entrance doors so she knew no one could hear. "What?"
Beckett ran her hands down her face. Time to face the music. "I wanted to say that I'm sorry for upsetting Emily last night, and how I handled things. It was rude and I never meant to hurt her."
"That's nice, I'll be sure to tell her. Are we done here?"
The younger woman stiffly shook her head. "Castle please just listen to me."
Castle looked to the New York detective with anger in his blue eyes, his fists clenching at his side as he so dearly wanted to take something in that room and throw it, the urge forming just to scare the younger woman. "Do you understand what you've done? You went and brought up our history and now she's having doubts."
"She was telling me really intimate details about you two, ok? I didn't want to listen to it anymore."
"And so to help yourself, you go and shit all over your friend and my fiancé?" The writer turned to the side and slammed his hands against the wall. "She went to a hotel for the week to think things over and you're here bitching about how we were making you feel. We were happy!"
Beckett's jaw dropped. "Emily left?"
"Yes," he growled. "Emily left. My engagement with the woman I love may be over and you're worrying about yourself?" Castle bit down hard on his cheek at the sight of the tears entering his ex's eyes, hating that his anger was making her feel this way. "Stop it."
"I'm allowed to be hurt by what you're saying to me, Castle!"
Castle stomped over to the brunette woman, glaring at her with a sense of aggravation he'd never had before. "This ISN'T about you, Kate! This is about me and Emily, and you could have ruined my soon-to-be marriage because you couldn't tell your friend in a nice way how to stop talking about our relationship. I finally got the woman I've wanted to marry for eight years to say yes to me, and now it could be ruined forever because of you!"
Beckett's hand came up to cover her mouth, watching as the man she had never known to blow a fuse march out of the break room and toward the elevators, his back turned on her like she thought it never would be.
