New oneshot! This one was a bit tougher, but I am actually going to make a big change and you'll soon see what it is ;-D. Enjoy!
1x09—Little Girl Lost
"Six months."
"Six months what?"
"We dated for six months."
"I didn't ask."
"Yeah, I know…you were not asking very loudly."
"I know….I'm like a Jedi like that."
Beckett rolled her eyes, wishing the elevator would get to their floor already, but for some reason it seemed to be taking forever. She hadn't meant to tell him about her relationship with Will—it'd just popped out before she could stop it. And now she was stuck in a small confined space with Castle until the doors to the elevator opened.
And that was just awkward.
"He still cares about you," Castle said, trying to fill the awkward silence. Kate rolled her eyes again and this time Castle didn't miss it. "He does!" He insisted. "I can tell by the way he looks at you that whatever happened—and I'm not going to ask for details—he wished it hadn't. I mean his leaving and all that. He truly does care."
God, this elevator was taking forever! Kate turned and glared up at Castle. "And who says I care about him?" she hissed. "Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was the one who broke it off?"
Castle's eyes widened for an instant at her sudden close proximity but he didn't back down. Instead, he looked her right in the eye. "Of course it did," he said, "but it's too much of a coincidence that he just up and went to Boston around the same time you two broke up, so clearly there are still unresolved feelings there. Feelings that you have for him."
"Prove it," Beckett challenged.
Castle grinned. "Prove that you don't," he challenged back, not expecting what came next.
Beckett grabbed the lapels of his jacket, pulling his lips down to hers, crushing their mouths together in a searing kiss. The kiss was only half-unplanned—the other half was planned with only about five seconds notice—and was meant to be a short, lust-filled kiss that would somehow prove that she didn't still have feelings for her ex.
Instead, the kiss was long and quickly went from brutal and bruising to passionate as Castle deepened it, begging permission with his tongue and almost instantly being accepted into Kate's mouth as she, too, lost herself in the kiss, her hands gripping his lapels as she felt his own sneaking up behind her, one hand pressed firmly on her back, bringing their bodies closer, while the other cradled the back of her head, his fingers running through the short tresses of her hair.
Then, suddenly, there was a ding and the elevator doors opened.
"What is wrong with these doors today…" Ryan trailed off as he caught the couple making out in the elevator—recognizing both of them immediately. "Beckett? Castle?" he gasped out, immediately gaining the attention of both his superior officer and the consulting detective, both of whom turned around with wide eyes, looking as if they had just been caught making out like teenagers under the bleachers by the Principal.
Well, they were half-right.
Kate's eyes searched the bullpen and she found about a dozen pairs of eyes looking straight at her and, to her horror, one of those pairs belonged to the very man who caused all this; Will Sorenson, whose eyes were wide in part-surprise, part-amusement, and part-disappointment.
"And that's how you do CPR," Castle said, attempting lamely to cover it up, "just two breaths and—"
"Castle," Beckett said, sternly, not looking at him.
"Right. Shutting up now," Castle complied.
Kate closed her eyes, silently praying for strength and when she opened them again, everybody had gone back to work, a few officers shooting her glances here and there, while her own partners, Ryan and Esposito, continued to stare at her in surprise—well, almost surprise. (Esposito saw it coming from a mile away; Ryan was a little more clueless.)
Will Sorenson was nowhere to be found.
"So," Kate said, trying for a tone that indicated normalcy, "what do we got on the parents?" She directed the question at Ryan, who was still staring, slack-jawed at her. He snapped out of it quickly at her prompt and began rattling off facts while following Kate to her desk, barely noticing that the detective was only half-paying attention.
And apparently Beckett was able to solve a case with just half the focus she usually dedicated to her work.
They found Angela with her aunt and found out that her mother had orchestrated the whole thing so that she would get custody when she divorced her husband.
Case closed. And this time, Kate mused, there was a living child to show for their efforts. This thought calmed her as she drove home, looking back at the past two days. It had been a while since she worked anything other than homicide and, of course, this particular dalliance had brought back an old flame and caused more than a little drama between her, Castle, and her entire team. Thankfully, the boys had been smart enough not to ask and Montgomery had just let her get away with a simple, meaningful look telling her to handle it.
And Kate, in response, had handled it with about as much grace as well…there really wasn't a much better comparison than that to a bumbling teenager. Kate had gone on to make an even bigger mistake not long after her elevator-kiss with Castle when she allowed Will to kiss her at the door of the break room, only to be caught in the act by Castle, who tried to play it off with a joke, but Kate, a trained detective, could see the hurt shining in his eyes.
He hadn't mentioned it afterwards, however, choosing to ignore it rather than to outwardly dwell on it, she supposed, but Kate had spent far too much time thinking about that kiss and how unremarkable it was in comparison to her lip-lock with Castle.
The kiss with Castle had been passionate, spine-tingling, and intense while the kiss with Will had been…forced. She had forced herself to respond to it—something she'd never had to do with any guy before, let alone an old flame. The kiss had been nice, though it hadn't left a single inch of her body tingling. Not like Castle's had.
Beckett shook her head, trying to get Castle out. When he had asked her out for drinks just a few short minutes ago, she had made up a date so that she wouldn't be forced to deal with the awkward conversation that might ensue over their…she didn't even know what to call it without it sounding like it meant something to her.
Which it didn't. It was just a simple kiss. Just to get her point across to him that she did not still have feelings for Will which was in fact confirmed by herself after their little impromptu kiss in the break room. No, she didn't have feelings for Will but did that mean she had feelings for Castle now?
If she hadn't kissed Castle before she kissed Will, would it have meant anything to her? Would it have been as spine-tinglingly delightful as her kiss with Castle had been? Or did that kiss with Castle actually mean something?
The look on Castle's face when she had turned down his offer had been almost…sad. Though he covered it up with humor, Beckett could see the almost imperceptible hurt in his eyes, even as they teased each other, ending with her telling him that there was more Nikki Heat in her than he thought.
Looking back on it now, Kate realized that she might have been sending him a message of some sort. She wasn't quite sure what the message might have meant but she'd almost hoped that he'd stop her before she left.
But he didn't.
And now she was driving aimlessly through the city, only half-focusing on the road ahead of her, making random turns and watching out for pedestrians here and there, killing time, she supposed, before returning to her empty apartment to take a hot bath, coupled with a glass of wine and one of his books.
Kate sighed, stopping at a red light. Had her life really come to this? Procrastinating returning to the peace and quiet of her apartment (which she so often longed for more of after a long, hard case) to spend some quality time with some of her favorite things.
Was she really craving something—or someone—that she was so completely sure she didn't want?
Kate thought on that for a few moments until a rather loud honk from the taxi behind her startled her out of her thoughts and she was forced to move forward, through the newly-green light, her destination firmly changed as she made the next left onto Broome street, hoping that she was not making a mistake.
Another two-parter for your Easter basket! I can't promise that I am going to have Part 2 up tomorrow because I have some plans that involve a beautiful celebrity who we all know and love, but if anybody can guess WHICH celebrity and what plans I have in the next two hours, I will update with the smutty continuation TONIGHT! So REVIEW!
