A/N: Thank you for your continued support, it means the world X
Beckett clenches her fists refusing to get into a cat-fight with the damn woman but wanting to smack that smug look right off her face.
Castle's hissing at her - Paula - and pushing her away, wanting her to keep her voice down as his eyes scan the crowds.
She grinds her teeth, hears the gnash and scrape of enamel like a cacophony of frustration within her head. She wants it to drown out her own humiliation, to silence the words and self doubt as three sets of eyes fall on her, waiting for her reaction.
It doesn't work.
Anger, like a heartbeat, pounds under her skin. It batters at her flesh wanting freedom, wanting escape and retaliation.
Wanting violence.
It pours from her eyes, liquid, hostile rage aimed directly at the woman who curls her fingers at Castle's elbow and seeks to soothe him even as she all but claps him on the back for having had sex with his 'muse' in a public restroom.
She doesn't give a fuck that the woman - Paula - is touching him. She doesn't, she won't care about that. It's not about him. It's the words, the hard and unforgiving truth slamming into her like a bullet to the chest.
Get her out of your system.
She knew better and she's stronger than this but ... but, oh god, it hurts. Her worst fears confirmed in the callous, thrown out confession of Castle's agent.
He said he was going to do the other book anyway, but there was a small part of her that thought - hoped - it had been a pretense. Beckett blinks fast past the knowledge that she'd almost convinced herself his blunt agreement to accept the offer had been as much a bluff as her telling him to take it.
"Detective Beckett? A moment?"
Kate jumps, forgetting her Captain, forgetting the man she not only admires but looks up to and respects is bearing witness to her embarrassment. To her own reckless self destruction. She flinches and immediately curses her body, tamps down the emotions steamrolling their way through her system, swallows thickly and calls on every instinct she has ever learned on the job.
Inside she might well be a simmering volcano, just waiting for a reason to explode, but on the outside she is calm, cool and collected. On the outside she is cold indifference.
There's a hard edge to Montgomery's voice. A clear sign that he can read her like an open book, knows exactly what her balled up fists are fighting against. What the look on her face truly means.
He gives her an out when it's so desperately needed.
Kate nods, hears herself answer but doesn't feel the words form. She knows Castle is staring at her, that he's waiting, waiting for her look or her word, anything from her at all. She can't make herself turn to him, she won't do it. He wants her attention and right now she feels like she's given him more than enough.
Her eyes focus on the woman whose words still burn under her skin, hot and painful, shredding at the tattered, outer edges of her heart.
She thought - No! No, no she won't go there, won't torture herself with more humiliation. And whatever she thought their encounter might mean to him she brushes aside in favor of keeping herself together.
Montgomery has given her an out and damn if she's not going to take it.
"Yes Sir." She snaps, and she spins on the heel of the stupidly sexy shoes she put on for this fucking book launch and marches away before she breaks apart.
As she walks, Beckett can feel the blood boil under her skin, can feel the rhythm of her heart in the tips of her fingers as her pulse pounds hard and fast in her ears.
She strides, long legs and wide steps taking her away from him as fast as possible. She needs the distance but she curses herself with every step for wanting to look back.
"Beckett?"
She turns toward Roy's voice, her head rising defiantly. "Can we not!" She states, expecting to see disappointment etched in the lines of the man's face. Instead she finds something like pity and that's worse. That starts up a fucking ache in her chest that she was determined to ignore.
"Beckett -" He tries again, but she cuts him off.
"I'm fine, Sir."
It's brittle and thin. She's a fucking awful liar and they both know it.
He doesn't call her on it though and she's silently grateful, meeting the older man's eyes properly for the first time. His hand dips inside his jacket and when it reemerges he thrusts a small silver flask at her.
Her fingers close around the metal container, half of her wanting to laugh and the other half barely holding itself together. She's a fucking mess and Kate swigs from the flask hungrily, wanting the burn and blur of alcohol to singe away some of the hurt.
Fire licks its way down her throat, a river of molten hope and amber liquid flooding her system and coursing towards her stomach.
It doesn't work.
She hands the flask back and the older man catches her eyes, making it obvious he knows what happened.
"I won't ask for details, Beckett." Montgomery promises quietly, his voice low and deep, a steel undercurrent running through his words. "But, do I need - ?"
A look passes between them and she catches his meaning instantly and god, no.
"No." Kate shakes her head, states with force and vivid emphasis so it sinks in quick and hard and fast. It was consensual, more than, god, his touch is still zipping through her veins and making it ridiculously hard to try and stay angry with him.
She wanted him - wants him - and he ... he wanted to get her out of his system?
"No." She says again more quietly, hurt leaking into the words, making them watery and painful and when her Captain offers her his jacket - his eyes lingering on the visibly creased blue lines of her dress - she takes it without complaint.
"Do I need to shoot him?" His voice is like gravel, but his eyes sparkling maybe a tad more than they should. As if - oh - he expected something like this - them, together - to happen.
Well...fuck!
"I'd rather do it myself." Beckett blurts, the threat laying there idly. She ignores the mirth of the man before her, his amusement that bristles against her. It sets her skin on edge when he swallows back a pretty obvious smile. He's reassured by it? Her apparent need for violence against the writer?
That's just a bit fucked up, but fitting.
Kate sighs, shifts from foot to foot and, in all honestly, just wants to go home. It must play out on her face because Montgomery ushers her ahead of him toward an out of the way door in the back.
Dragging a hand through her hair, Kate finally throws one last look over the man's shoulder, catching sight of Castle as he talks animatedly to Paula.
As much as she forced herself to not look back as she walked away from him only moments ago, seeing him now, once more before she leaves, it helps. Beckett lets the image of him spinning around and gesturing at the other woman attempt to harden her heart.
This is his world, not hers. She needs to leave.
Montgomery holds the door open, Kate lifts her eyes gratefully and turns, hoping Castle won't see her and she can just slip away quietly.