Disclaimer: I do not own these characters-if I did I would have my own house in the Hamptons (you can find writing I do get paid for on Amazon, beginning with Wearing the Cape). The Long Holiday is strictly cannon to the point where it launches from the ending of Episode 2/24, A Deadly Game. After that it's strictly AU and (with the mystery stolen from Murder, He Wrote) the sole product of this author's fevered imagination. This is my first fanfic, and reviews are most welcome.
"So, Lerner did do it? It was a management takeover?" Castle watched Lerner on the screen. Brady had had Deputy Jones pull him out of lockup to be re-interviewed when they got back, and Beckett and Brady had gone another round with him.
"Unless you believe his story about a scary local pissed about Franklin's moving in," Kate said.
"Do you, Beckett?"
"I don't know. The helicopter was a smart way of moving product out of the city—much safer than by land or sea—but selling here?"
"So Franklin goes from cooking the books to cooking meth, but he's new to the game—unlike Vinnie he doesn't know better than to crap where he eats. He's got a stop on his pipeline here, why not sell here? And we've still got the problem of Lerner not being smart enough to clean his own crime scene. Chief? You said your drug problems doubled in the last six months?"
Chief Brady nodded.
"So he dumps some of his product here to maximize profits, upsets the local supplier, who executes him godfather style—"
"On Lerner's boat to implicate Franklin's own people!" Kate finished.
"It all fits! Chief?"
The chief slumped, rubbed his face. "So it looks like it's my problem. What do we do?"
Castle looked at a loss, and Kate sighed. "I don't work vice, Chief. But I think a homicide investigation does turn up the local heat. Shake McMurray for his dealer, and if the dealer isn't our likely then promise him immunity for the name of his supplier. Work your way up the chain threatening each link with a homicide charge."
"Oh. Yeah, that makes sense." Brady picked up his mic. "Jones?"
"Yeah, Chief?"
"Put Lerner back in lockup and get us McMurray."
"Um…okay."
"Jones? Is there a problem?"
"Well, since he wasn't a suspect anymore there was no reason to hold him after he finished sleeping it off—we let him go yesterday."
Castle barked a laugh, and Kate hid her smile. "It's not a problem, Chief. It's not like you could have held him for more than a day without charges anyway. Was he carrying?"
Brady shook his head. "Only in his system, detective. And we didn't even test him for it. Sorry."
"Really, not a problem. Have your boys go pick him up. We'll wait."
"But not here," Castle said. "Beckett, we have a commitment of our own. Alexis will kill us if we're not home for lunch."
"Wow, Detective—Kate." Alexis looked her over. "Dad's going to just die."
"I hope not—one body in the pool is enough." But Kate bit her lip, looking pleased as she turned in front of her bedroom mirror.
Alexis had talked Detective Beckett into a swim with lunch, arguing that investigations were unpredictable and they could wind up closing this one by dark—which meant Kate would have to go back to the city.
Alexis hoped the investigation would drag out for days, but Kate had laughed and let herself be persuaded.
"Yeah…" Alexis let herself shiver a little, but kept her smile. "And this time I have a plan to get Dad to actually swim!"
"I thought he didn't swim this early in the season?"
"Dad's a big baby. So I dug these out." She picked up the pool bag she'd brought in with her, opened it up. Kate took a peek and her eyes widened.
"Young lady, I like the way you think. Your father won't see what hit him."
"Oh yes he will," Alexis laughed. Kate turned to look at herself again, and Alexis' hand came up to cover her mouth. "And that's the point."
"Hmm?"
"Nothing, Kate. Just, you look great."
The look Castle gave Kate when she and Alexis came down the stairs, pool bags over their shoulders, made her pulse skip and speed up. She barely kept the smile from curling across her face—she hadn't been at all sure, but the purple and silver one-piece, a web of straps and buckles, looked to have been a good investment.
"Eyes in, Castle."
"Not a chance, Beckett. You've got an audience."
"Dad…" Kate smoothed her smile as Alexis made the proper daughterly response to parental commentary. "C'mon, guys! We're wasting sunlight!"
"Yes, boss!" Castle saluted his daughter, hefting the basket of sandwiches and drinks, waving for them to precede him.
They walked down to the pool, where Castle pulled three of the pool chairs into a circle around one of the low tables while Alexis laid out their lunch. The wind off the beach barely ruffled Kate's hair, and the cloudless sky let the sun warm them as they sat. Alexis made sandwiches almost as fancy as her dad's, and just as delicious, and the lemonade hit the perfect sweet spot.
Kate closed her eyes and lie back to sip her drink and enjoy the sun on her face, listening to Castle brief his daughter on the events of the morning. Alexis asked intelligent questions, and Kate smiled to herself. The girl had rather stunned Kate when she'd done her day of work-study at the precinct, not only organizing the mess she'd been given but being caring enough and clever enough to track down the proper owners of a family photo-album.
Whatever Alexis decided to do, she threw her heart into it.
"Kate?"
Speaking of which…
"Yes?"
"Time to swim—the whole two-hours-after-you-eat thing is a myth."
"If you say so, sweetie." Kate stood, stretched, and undid the wrap she'd tied around her waist. She left it on the chair and took three steps—not looking at Castle—to drop waist-deep into the shallow end of the pool (and hide her gasp at the cool water) less than ten feet from Alexis' dad.
Alexis set her bag on the edge and dropped into the pool beside Kate, giving a little yelp. Her dad sat forward in his chair and laughed at them, shaking his head. "You're both crazy."
"Maybe, Castle," but this time we brought something for you, too." Kate reached into the open bag, tossed the first Super-Squirter to Alexis and grabbed the second. Castle's eyes widened.
"Hey—wait— No!" He was quick, she had to give him that, but their twin jets caught him before he'd jumped to his feet and gotten more than two steps. They kept it up, laughing insanely, and the jumbo water-guns hosed his head and shirt before he got close to out of range.
He stopped. Turned around, and looked down at his dripping pool-shirt and shorts.
"Well. Okay then, fair's fair." He stepped towards the pool.
"Castle…Castle!" Kate protested, still laughing, as he dropped into the pool beside her without a pause.
"No Beckett, it's my turn." Before she could dodge away he'd wrapped his arms around her waist, lifted her up.
"It was Lexis' idea!" She gasped. "Castle—"
"Oh, she'll get her turn." He went under, taking her with him.
Alexis did get her turn as Castle chased them both around the pool until the chill sent them all into the Jacuzzi. Castle had shed his pool shirt somewhere during the chase, and Kate got to admire him in return while they swam and soaked. It was perfect.
Which of course meant it couldn't last. Her cellphone rang as they sat, relaxing and soaking up heat.
"Well that was easy."
"Not happy, Castle?" They stood on the marina dock as Chief Brady and his deputies got ready.
Brady had called to tell them that they didn't need to come back to the station; his boys had found McMurray and the meth-head had rolled on his dealer. They had searched the guy's place, found the burner phone that called Franklin to the marina, and now they were going in to arrest the guy on his boat.
"Marty Bentley. I did not see that coming."
"Yeah, well it makes sense Castle—who better than the marina operator to know about Lerner, take the boat out with nobody else seeing him?"
"Yeah." They watched the chief yell, gun out, kick down the cabin door and disappear inside. "So, Chief Brady's first time pulling his gun."
"Maybe I should go with them."
"Put four guns in there? They'll be alright, I'm sure they don't need you to show them how it's done."
More shouts came from inside the boat, but no gunshots and Kate relaxed. A minute later Chief Brady emerged with a cuffed and protesting Marty Bentley. It took him some work to maneuver both of them off the boat and onto the dock.
"We got him, detective," he said needlessly.
"Hey Chief!" Deputy Jones called behind him. He waved what looked like plastic bags. "We've got a dozen baggies of what looks like meth down here, and a 35 caliber carbine!"
"Which I'm sure will match the ballistics report on the murder weapon," Kate said. "Good work, Chief."
"This is ridiculous!" Bentley stood, breathing hard, not struggling but not slumped in defeat. "I didn't kill anybody! You've got the wrong guy!"
The chief handed him off to his deputies, turned to Castle and Kate as they led him away.
"Hold on a second there!" Castle shouted, startling her. The deputies stopped, turned around.
"Castle, what?"
Castle pointed at the ropes holding mooring Bentley's boat to the dock.
"This knot. Both of these knots. Perfect figure-eights, neatly flemished." He looked at Bentley. "Did you tie these?"
"Of course I did! It's my boat."
Kate looked at the knots, looked up. "What about it, Castle?"
"It's beautiful," he babbled excitedly. "I mean, it's perfect! That could be in a book on nautical knots!"
Chief Brady frowned, scratched his head. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Everyone agrees that the killer is the same person who stole Aaron Lerner's boat—that person had to tie the boat back up to the dock! But the knot was sloppy—I even tripped over it. Whoever tied these figure-eights is an experienced boatman—tying the knot we saw on Lerner's boat would have been impossible for him! Bentley can't be the killer!"
Kate blinked. She'd watched Bentley retie the knot yesterday, just like the knots Castle held up as Exhibit A. Could Bentley be that clever? Not in her experience.
The chief was talking. "But we found the burner phone that placed the call to Franklin in Bentley's apartment! How do you explain that?"
"That's easy! We know that the killer used Lerner's boat to point us at a likely suspect. When we didn't bite, he needed to frame someone else before we looked in the right direction. So, who better than the witness who saw the boat go out? Our killer just planted the phone, the meth, and the gun!"
"And just who do you think planted it?"
Castle stepped forward, into Chief Brady's personal space.
"You tell me."
Castle… The chief opened his mouth and Kate could see the situation deteriorating from here. "Uh, Chief? Who talked to McMurray, got him to finger Bentley?"
The chief stopped, closed his mouth. "Jones. It was Deputy Jones."
Half-turned, Kate saw everything but couldn't move fast enough as Jones drew his gun, clubbed his fellow deputy to the dock with it, grabbed Bentley and put the gun to his head.
"Get back! Everybody stay back!"
Beside her, she Chief Brady drew almost as fast as she did.
"Take it easy, Jones." His voice was a little high, but his hands stayed steady. "We don't want anybody to get hurt."
Deputy Jones ignored him to glare at Castle. Kate knew the feeling, but she wasn't going to let it stand from someone with a gun in his hand.
"You rich weekenders! You think you're so smart! Meantime you pollute our beaches, you throw your money around like you're better than us!"
"Hey! I don't think I'm better than you!" Castle protested from behind her. Not helping, Castle…
"Shut up! I don't care about that! But then, Franklin's city money wasn't' good enough for him, had to move in on my side business! So I did what I had to do—" Bentley elbowed Jones, dropped to the dock. Jones recovered, realized he was exposed and raised his gun to point at Castle. The double shots dropped him, Chief Brady's a split-second before Kate's.
Chief Brady stood there, stunned, but Kate was already moving. By the time Brady lowered his gun, she'd run forward to straddle Jones. She rolled him and cuffed him before looking up.
"Nice!" Castle laughed. "That was a Hamptons Heat twist I didn't see coming." He looked at the chief. "Sorry about the whole accusing you of murder thing. We still good?"
"Yeah."
Castle patted his shoulder, and the chief remembered to put away his gun.
"Are you sure you won't change your mind, Kate? Go back in the morning?"
They stood in front of the "beach house" by her car. Alexis had put up a loud argument when Kate had announced her plan to drive back to the city tonight, but had finally surrendered and helped her pack. She'd given Kate a hug at the door before letting her go and going inside.
"Sorry, Castle." Two days of working on it and Castle still sounded more natural in her ears than Rick. And it would be "Castle" back at the precinct. "Chief Brady has everything wrapped up and Montgomery will want me back soonest. And you need to write. It's been fun."
Fun. That sounded good, a good way to leave it. It was fun, Castle. Now she could go, Gina could come back, and she would have the summer to get ready for the next time she saw him.
Castle looked like he wanted to continue Alexis' argument, but he didn't. Instead he stepped back and smiled.
"Okay, Kate. See you in the fall?"
He held out his hand.
Kate looked at Castle and tried, with every detective skill she'd picked up on the job, to see what was there. Castle looked…like Castle, always with a smile and glad to be here and she couldn't read him any better now than she could day one when he'd made her want to shoot him, when she'd thought nobody could love Castle as much as he loved himself. She flashed back on those words—See you in the fall?—her faint words just days ago as he walked away with Gina and a smile—and she felt the echo of that stunning hit.
He ruined everything! Alexis' protest over tea.
But that was the assessment of a sixteen-year old, one who, however smart and precocious, didn't know the whole story.
She took his hand, didn't shake it. "Think you'll be done by then, Castle?"
"I think so. I feel properly inspired. This has been fun." Still the quirky smile, but his eyes… Kate might just be seeing things, the things she hoped to see, but…
What do you want, Kate? Tom had asked her that, when she'd told him that they were done before they'd really started. She hadn't been able to answer him, not honestly, but if she didn't answer now she never would. No. Not this time. Castle had stepped away from her, turned to Gina, because Kate had made it painful for him to stay. And maybe that was the way it was supposed to be but she couldn't leave it there.
What do you want, Kate? She wanted Castle, and now she felt the shivery not-panic that came just before going into a hot room, gun up and Espo and Ryan behind her.
"Castle— Rick. The other day, when you said goodbye at the precinct, I wanted to tell you something."
His smile deepened.
"You did. You told me to have a good summer."
Kate took a deep breath, focused on that smile. "Yeah, well sometimes I don't always say what I mean, Castle. Big surprise."
"Oh?" An eyebrow went up.
"What I was going to say was—I said, that I'm not the easiest person to get to know…"
"True, Detective Beckett. But you're worth the work."
I can't do this. She felt like she was going to throw up.
"Kate?"
And now he was worried. She looked at his big hand, warm in hers, and took another breath. Pushing her hair behind her ears, she made it all in a rush.
"I said awhile back that I'd gotten used to having you around, Castle, pulling my pigtails. The truth is—the truth is that I love having you as my partner and if all we ever do is share coffee and build theory together, I can accept that but I've realized that what I really want is something more. Castle—if I missed my chance—if you and Gina— I get that. I do. But I wanted you to know."
She winced, stumbling over the last words but refusing to lose her courage, to look away. Finished, she sucked in air. Waited.
"Rick?
"Castle? Castle."
He blinked. "I'm sorry. I'm just remembering every line of heart-scene dialogue I've ever used and coming up dry." Impossibly, his smile widened.
Kate exhaled, realized she wasn't finished and took another breath.
"I—ended things with Tom before you left. I should have told you this weekend." She huffed. "So, there's that. Say something, Castle? I'm doing all the work here."
"Okay, I got it." His hand tightened around hers. "Kate, you had me at 'something more.'"
Her laugh was one sharp exhalation as she finally blinked, light-headed. "Really? You're going with Jerry McGuire?"
"I steal from the best. Kate."
He dropped her hand, pulling her close hard enough to force a breath of surprise out of her. Without her high heels, she looked up into his beaming face and then his mouth dropped to hers, slowly, softly, and stayed there.
He might have stolen the line from Hollywood, but Tom Cruise didn't need to teach him how to kiss. His lips were warm and she'd remember other details later, now all she knew was they were kissing and that meant all was right. Self-preservation made her breathe before she asphyxiated. She opened her eyes to see him still smiling with all of his face, and she realized she'd put up her hands to draw them through his hair, pull him down to her.
He puffed a laugh, warm across her face. "One year, one month, fourteen days."
"What?"
"Since you walked into my last Derick Storm book launch party."
Her own smile grew till it hurt.
"Wow, Castle. I'm impressed."
"And I said, 'Where would you like it?'"
"And not so impressed."
"And I fell for Detective Kate Beckett, the girl with the gun." He let go, reluctantly, and his hand went back down to capture hers. He stroked it, running his thumb over her knuckles. Kate looked at their joined hands, back up at the beautiful blue eyes that watched her. Her inside-voice said she should be acting more like Bergman to his Bogart, but Castle was the wordsmith and the wide-open smile just wouldn't leave her face.
"So…"
"So."
"I do have to get back to the city."
"And I have to write a book."
She swung their hands between them, chewed on her smile. "Are you going to call Gina?"
"Yes. To tell her that Alexis can keep me on track."
"Oh. Okay."
She couldn't smile any wider, and the unbearable need to say something fought with the equal need to keep the moment perfect as it was.
Castle was the one who finally sighed and let go. After heartbeats, Kate remembered where she'd put her feet. Stepping back she folded, near-bonelessly, into her car. Castle closed her door, tapped the window. When she turned her key and brought the window down, he gripped the open frame, leaned in for a second kiss that left them resting foreheads together until he straightened.
She had to remember how to put it in gear, and she shifted without looking away as he took a step back.
"So. Kate. See you in the fall?"
"See you in the fall."
And this ends The Long Holiday. The final chapter is the largest, but it had no stopping points where I could cut it in two (and since I'd written the final scene last week, once I'd finished the mystery I decided not to leave you guys hanging).
You can imagine for yourselves what happens next: Season Three opens much differently. Beckett and Castle have had the summer to talk, text, and adjust to the idea of Something More before Castle gets back in the fall. Then Beckett wants to hide their relationship from the boys. The two of them dance around each other like awkward high schoolers while Castle plans The Night. Etc. All good fun.
And this was fun. Maybe I'll do it again some time; there's not much romance in my professional writing, and I certainly need the practice.
Maybe in the fall.