State of the Union

Chapter 9

Beckett steeled herself and walked out of her guest suite. Her hands fidgeted with the silky fabric shifting over her hips as she wandered down the hall. Thanks to her job, skirts were foreign and… unsettling. Yet, she had packed the deep red dress in the hopes of it aiding in a little light flirting, maybe catching the attention of a certain blue eyed president over Christmas dinner, not imagining the possibility of an awkward staring contest after making out with him under the mistletoe the night before.

Her cheeks flushed at the memory, which was why she had avoided him until now. Falling into bed exhausted at seven A.M. after her shift ended, she had tossed and turned until noon. Giving up on sleep at that point, she had shrugged off her exhaustion in favor of running the five mile round trip to town for lunch. Her ritual "Merry Christmas" call to her parents, followed by a shower, had bought her a few minutes more but there was no more avoiding now. The president and Jonas had made it abundantly clear that they were all to be at Christmas dinner promptly at five.

The dining room was empty save for one other body when she entered. Rodrigues' eyes rolled up, giving her a once over. With an audible huff he went back to picking over the platters of appetizers laid out for them. Beckett hadn't once seen the brawny agent when he wasn't eating.

"We all know your boyfriend saved your job," Rodrigues stated in a casual rumble as his fingers closed around a crab puff, depositing it on his overflowing plate before inching his way down the buffet.

Beckett juggled the small plate in her hand, catching it just before it hit the table, her eyes wide in surprise as she stared at the solid brick of a man.

"What are you talking about?" She stuttered, clutching the edge of the plate. "I don't have a boyfriend."

"Please. There's no point in denying it. Everybody knows."

Kate's eyes darted around the space, willing her hands not to shake even as her heart pounded in her chest. No one else had been awake the night before. No one had seen them, had they? There was no way, she and Castle would have heard. Except she hadn't heard anything except the rush of blood in her veins, tingling from her fingers to her toes, and some very specific places in between…

"You may be tight lipped about how you're banging your way up the line, but Sorenson was bragging it up at the bar the other night about how he was tapping you. But hey, that's how you make it in this town, right? Either screw 'em right or screw 'em over. Just try not to screw this up, eh, Beckett? At least the big electric fence will make it harder for you to lose this Castle."

Any reply Kate could have possibly fathomed died on her lips. Will had said what? And the entire squad believed it?

As suddenly as her disbelief came, it gave way to anger. Her knuckles blanched white around her plate. "Will told…"

Her vision was white. Her mind whirred as it devised every possible way to take her anger out on a man easily twice her size: her first thought involved showing him how the heel of a stiletto could get stuck in some very uncomfortable places. But before she could voice her disbelief, her rant was cut off.

"Merry Christmas, Agent Rodrigues!" President Castle announced from behind her as he wandered into the room, his hands clapping merrily with his greeting. "I'm glad to see you enjoying the refreshments. Eat up, I made sure Elsie, the head chef, ordered double just for you."

Beckett took a cleansing breath before slowly turning, forcing her eyes to lift from where they had trained on the simple, white, china dish still clutched in her hands. "Merry Christmas, Mr. President."

"Ah, Agent Beckett," Castle responded, his smile faltering slightly before lifting into an impossibly wider grin. The smile that made his eyes crinkle at the corners as they danced and sparkled with wonder. She had only ever seen that look given to Alexis, and her breath caught in her throat thinking that it could be meant for her. "At the risk of sounding inappropriate and unprofessional, you look beautiful this evening."

"Thank you, sir," she mumbled, forcing her face to play down the matching grin threatening to burst free. The rumor mill would be bad enough with Sorenson; if Rodrigues started blathering about her making googly eyes at the president, she might as well start packing for her new post guarding a bunker on the outskirts of Yuma.

She wasn't supposed to be doing this. He wasn't supposed to be looking at her this way. If he kept looking at her like that, like he wanted to know the exact ways to make her smile after someone pushed the perfect storm of buttons to make her cry, like he wanted to make love to her every night for the rest of their lives and wake up next to her every morning, like he already knew their kids would have her hair and his eyes, she wouldn't survive dinner let alone the next three years.

Three years…

Was it even worth it, waiting three years for something that might be extraordinary? Or was she considering wasting the prime of her life on what could turn out to be a schoolgirl crush? Part of her psyche cringed at the thought that she would even consider it.

"Oh good, Agent Jonas, there you are." Castle continued, forcing Beckett's eyes to snap away from his, but not before she caught that look that told her he knew exactly what she had been thinking. "Elsie promised me that dinner is almost ready. It's just going to be us I'm afraid. I tried to get the rest of the staff to join us, but they declined, content to head home for the evening. I know this probably isn't your first choice of how to spend your holiday but I appreciate you all sacrificing your time with family and loved ones to help keep watch over me."

Rodrigues let out a snort just loud enough for Beckett to hear, his bulging arm colliding with her shoulder as he rounded the buffet to ravage the other side. Her jaw clenched and her stomach gurgled as she continued to glower at the other agent. Their conversation had waylaid her from her original mission: food.

"Dig in, Agent." Castle's voice washed over her like a wave as he walked up behind her. "I made sure Elsie and her staff made some of your favorites."

"Thank you, Mr. President," Kate replied evenly. Lasting the next three hours was going to be a stretch; three years was going to be impossible.


Castle stared at the twinkling lights on the impeccably decorated Christmas tree. Every ornament was perfectly spaced and aligned. It had must have taken the decorator hours, and ample use of a ruler to make sure it was that exact. His eyes fell to the symmetrical stack of "presents" surrounding the base. They weren't real. They were simply empty boxes wrapped with expert precision to make the scene complete. Not that he had shaken them to check the first chance he got when no one was around.

The tree back at the White House had stacks of gifts underneath it, all different sizes and shapes. Not one of them had crisp lines and invisible tape. They were all wrinkled or lopsided, wrapped by either twelve-year-old hands or his own fumbling fingers. Becky had offered to wrap them or have them gift wrapped in the store, but Castle couldn't bring himself to give up the tradition of staying up all night wrapping his daughter's presents himself.

His hands wrung in his lap, twisting and twirling as his fingers wound around each other. He hadn't expected it to be this hard, spending a holiday away from his little girl. It had been years now with just the two of them against the world. Even before the divorce, Meredith had been flitting in and out, flying from New York to L.A. for auditions, meetings, and shoots. This year they would open presents the day after the holiday, when Alexis was home and Meredith was on a plane bound for California, but for now he was left staring at a bunch of empty shell gifts, save for one.

"It's… nice."

Castle was pulled from his musings by the soft, feminine voice behind him. Half of him wanted to tell her to go away. The other half wanted to wrap her up in his arms and never let go.

"Yeah," he grunted in reply. His eyes never leaving the small rectangular gift nestled amongst the imposters under the tree. "In a sterile sort of way."

"I've always preferred popsicle stick art and eclectic ornaments myself," Beckett stated and Castle had a sudden flash of what their Christmas future would look like— a giddy family surrounded by piles of torn paper snuggled warm under a slightly lopsided tree.

"As I was walking by just now, there was this voice— it sounded a lot like my mom's, actually— that told me to keep walking. It's the same voice that told me not to come here in the first place, and to give up the apartment you found," she continued, the words getting nearer until was seated on the sinfully plush couch next to him.

Castle leaned back against the cushions with a sigh. Finally, looking over, he saw her doing the same, adjusting the throw pillows until she was comfortably sitting with one in her lap.

"Why are you here?"

The question came out harsher than he had intended, and the tension in the air doubled as Kate let out a puff of breath, toying with the sleeve of the black blazer she had changed into for her shift.

"What can I say, I've never been very good at listening to that voice. Also, above all else, we're friends, right? And friends don't let friends sit alone and brood on Christmas Eve."

"They cover that in the academy?"

"Yep, somewhere between driving drunk and hooking up with exes."

The quick, deadpan reply forced a laugh to his lips. Before he could stop it, Castle's hand reached out to grab hers, their fingers twining together. "Thank you, for being here."

She graced him with an easy smile and a quick squeeze of his fingers before removing her hand to reach for her pocket. She had wanted to say something in reply, he could see it in her eyes, the way her lips tensed at the corners, smothering it.

"It's, uh, after midnight," she stuttered after a moment. "Technically Christmas morning, so I just wanted to give this to you, as a friend."

She added the last three words quickly as an after thought, and it made him want to kiss her all that much more.

"I got you something too..." He stated as he knelt down in front of the tree to swipe up the small oblong box. "Well, technically Becky had an aid pick it up and I told her it was for my mother, but I picked it out and wrapped it..."

He trailed off when he turned to find her grinning down at him, her silent laughter hidden behind a fist.

"What?"

"Nothing, and thank you, that's really sweet. You shouldn't have..."

"You're welcome, and you shouldn't have either but I wanted to, so here," Castle replied, settling back into his seat and holding out the gift. His fingers pressed against the paper in a fruitless attempt to mash it into its proper place. "I can run a country but I can't wrap a box."

"No, it's perfect." Kate murmured, as the small packages switched hands and Castle watched, content to wait to open his own so he could see the expression on her face.

"Castle!" She exclaimed in a whisper. "This is gorgeous."

Her eyes were wide, lips parted in disbelief as she held up the white gold rope chain, adorned with a small, single, diamond-encrusted elephant charm.

"I can't..." She started, but Castle cut her off with a shake of his head, relieving her of the chain to wrap it around her wrist, latching the toggle clasp of the Tiffany's bracelet.

"Yes, you can. Just think of it as a promise. Besides, if you don't, then I actually have to give it to my mother and that will start a very expensive precedent that I really don't want to follow."

"Well, we wouldn't want that," Kate responded wryly. She lifted her eyes from her wrist to catch his, a full smile gracing her face as his hands continued to cradle hers, his thumb tracing nonsensical patterns on her skin. With a sharp shake of her head she pulled her hand away to motion at the small box lying in his lap. "Open yours."

Castle bobbed his head in a nod as he looked down to work the small, perfectly triangular flaps of paper free. He glanced up to see Kate worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Popping open the small box, his face broke into a wide grin, a laugh escaping.

"Where did you find these?" He asked as he picked one of the cufflinks out of the box to closer inspect the Jedi insignia etched into sterling silver.

"You can find pretty much anything online. I mean, what else would you get the leader of the free world, and I figured they could add a little fun to your life."

"Figured correctly, you did. These are fantastic. Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said on a laugh.

Castle couldn't help but stare at her, the way her fingers threaded through her hair as she watched him in return, her eyes completely unguarded. She wasn't like that around the other agents or staff, even ones who were considered friends. His fingers caught hers once again as he scooted toward her, only to freeze when her eyes dropped.

"I wanted to tell you before you heard from the rumor mill…" Kate's voice trailed off as she turned her head to look over the back of the couch, out the open door and into the hall.

"What?" Castle prompted, Kate's sudden shift in attitude making his heart sink in his chest.

"Apparently word has gotten around that the only reason I still have a job is that I'm sleeping with Sorenson."

The world ground to a halt, his heart barely beating. "You're…"

"It's not true," Kate interjected quickly, her head shaking in emphasis. "I haven't… I'm not… I just wanted you to know, because you and I are..."

"Okay," he replied slowly. "I think I understand. Is there anything you want me to do? I have a nation's worth of resources at my disposal. I can make it look like an accident."

Kate let out a small laugh. "I'm a big girl, Castle. I can fight my own battles, but thank you."

"I really don't like that guy."

"Yeah, well, neither have I for the past five years, but he is very good at his job."

"So are you."

She gave him a small smile, squeezing his hand one last time before dropping it, rubbing her palms down her thighs. "Speaking of my job, I should get back to work."

Castle nodded, his thumb running over the ridges of his new possession as Kate rounded the couch, her hand gliding over his shoulder, scratching slightly against the nape of his neck. "Goodnight, Agent. Merry Christmas."

"Until tomorrow, Rick."

For the second night in a row, he listened to the click of her heels disappearing down the hall until he was once again alone.

He never wanted to hear that sound again.


A/N: Just a couple things. First off, I made up the name of the German Chancellor in the last chapter, so for those of you who were trying to match to history, you'll probably be disappointed. Also, I was informed that Marines guard Camp David when the president is in residence even though it is a Navy installation. Whoops. They didn't have that on Wikipedia. ;)

My political knowledge is not the best so please take this story with a grain of salt, but thank you as always for reading and I hope you are still enjoying!

Thank you as always to Kate Christie for taking time out of her hectic schedule to make my words flamingo pretty. You're the best, girl.

Xx

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