Author's Note: I hope the fluffiness in this fic is helping people get over the wreck of canon. (I know I'm still upset about it.) This is the second of the two chapters based on "Law and Murder." More familiar dialogue ahead.
Diving Into It Together
Chapter 24
Breakfast the next morning was quiet.
Castle was subdued in a way that betrayed just how much it weighed on him to be at odds with Alexis and kept glancing towards the stairs to watch for her to come downstairs.
Kate lingered but eventually, she had to get ready to leave for work since they were in the middle of a case, after all. She hesitated, glanced at the stairs that still showed no sign of Alexis, and then back at Castle. "I need to go to work but you can stay and talk to Alexis."
"Assuming she'll talk to me at all," he said gloomily. He looked at the clock and frowned a little. "She needs to leave for school soon anyway."
She patted his arm as she went into his office to retrieve her gun and then returned to the living room to see Alexis coming down the stairs.
"Good morning, Alexis," Castle said, somewhat tentatively.
And then Kate winced as Alexis, for the first time in her life, Kate was pretty sure, ignored Castle's greeting.
"Do you want any breakfast?" Kate spoke up, hoping that sitting down for the meal would break through Alexis's lingering sullen anger. She couldn't imagine that it wouldn't, as close as Castle and Alexis were. It wasn't natural for either Castle or Alexis not to be speaking to each other.
"No, thanks, Kate. I'll grab something on the way," Alexis answered and then she was out the door in the next minute, having steadfastly not looked at Castle.
Ouch.
For the first time, Kate felt a quick flicker of anger at Alexis. She might have understood Alexis's anger but ignoring Castle so entirely was, she felt, going a little too far, especially as Alexis would know how much it would hurt Castle. But then again, Kate reminded herself, Alexis was only sixteen, a teenager still, as much as it was easy to forget that with how mature Alexis usually seemed, and Kate remembered all too well the times she had been angry at her own parents and had ignored them too. She felt the usual pinch of her heart at the memories, every harsh word or harsher silence she had ever had for her mom weighing on her now that Kate would give everything she owned and then some just to be able to talk to her mom again.
She looked at Castle and hurriedly crossed the room to him, slipping her arm around him since he was still staring at the door of the loft looking as desolate as if a beloved pet had just died. "Give her time, Castle," she said softly. "She's angry and she's hurt but she will get over it."
"I suppose."
She kissed his cheek. "I'm sure of it, Castle. You and Alexis have been too close for her entire life for this to affect your relationship for too long."
He sighed. "Yeah, I guess. I just hate fighting with her."
"I don't think she likes fighting with you either," she observed and then added, quietly, "You okay to head to the precinct?" Working on a case might make him feel better too.
He blinked. "Yeah, sure."
They went to the precinct and dove straight into the case, trying to figure out why Joe McUsic had bribed his way onto the jury. They couldn't find any connection between Joe and Otis Williams or Joe and Lyla Addison until Castle's sharp eye noticed Joe in the crime scene photo from Lyla Addison's case file. And for once, Kate was thankful for Castle's love of convoluted theories as she saw, as he expounded on his "killer with a conscience" theory, that he was entirely distracted, caught up in the story he was telling. She gave him some push-back because she had to (and anyway, he would notice and get suspicious if she didn't) but then the plot took another twist as Ryan returned from Joe's apartment, where he'd gone to see if Joe's belongings provided any clues to a connection to either Otis Williams or Lyla. Instead, Ryan had found the burner phone Joe had bought, leading straight to the series of phone calls to the DA's office.
If ever a case had been made to ensure that Castle would be enthralled and not have any inclination to get bored, it was this one as the evidence started to look a lot like a conspiracy involving the DA. It was a plot straight out of a mystery novel, complete with a corrupt public official involved in the cover-up.
Castle was, she knew, enjoying every minute of it. She could see it in the brightness of his eyes, although by now he had learned to train his expression into seriousness. He did love conspiracy theories, especially real-life ones. And it was thanks to Castle and his outside-the-box thinking that they thought to interview Otis Williams himself, see what his information might lead them to with how Joe's murder was looking so directly tied to Lyla's.
"The seat-back button," Castle enthused as they returned to her desk. "What a great detail for a murder mystery."
She hid a smile. She already knew Castle was probably going to regale his mystery writer poker group with this one when they met up next month. "Only if we get a print," she cautioned as she picked up the phone to call the impound lot.
He made his 'don't ruin my story with your logic' face but had to concede, "Yes. Otherwise we'll just be looking for tall people."
She smirked and then felt her expression freeze as she heard Alexis's voice. "Dad?"
Castle spun around and Kate finally glimpsed Alexis standing just beyond the bullpen, looking hesitant.
"Alexis. H-hey," Castle greeted, not quite fluently. "Is everything okay?" he asked in swift concern.
"Can we talk?"
"Of course."
Castle glanced back at her and Kate promptly put on her best encouraging expression before he walked around to join Alexis. Her eyes met Alexis's and the girl gave her a faint ghost of a smile.
Kate watched as Castle and Alexis walked away to try to find some privacy in the bustling bullpen, her heart suddenly turning into a soft, melting thing in her chest at the sight of Castle's head bent down towards Alexis, the attentiveness and love in every line of his figure. Oh, damn. Really, falling in love had turned her into such a sap, she thought. But she couldn't seem to help it. She just… cared so much about everything to do with both Castle and Alexis and knowing they had each in their own way been hurting over their brief estrangement had pained her so how could she not be happy to watch them and know they were mending?
She was distracted enough that she started when she heard a voice answer on the other end and had to mentally shake herself before she could explain what they needed. But she composed herself, asking CSU to expedite the results of the print since it was needed for two cases and Otis Williams's second trial was scheduled to start first thing next week. The wheels of justice could move awfully slowly but not for this case, not when the victim's parents were such important people who were subtly and not-so-subtly pressuring the system to get justice for their daughter. Fortunately, because the car was already in the impound lot, they didn't need to worry about getting a warrant so the CSU tech promised the results from the fingerprinting would be faxed over the moment they were finished, predicting it would only be a matter of minutes.
Kate tried—and rather failed—to keep herself busy by studying the murder board again, mulling over the evidence they had and how it all fit together. She found that she couldn't help but be distracted, wondering how Castle and Alexis were doing, what Alexis was telling Castle. She was positively itching to go over and try to find them but she heroically refrained from intruding on them. It was important for just the two of them to talk and iron out their differences. This was between them. She hoped—expected—that Castle would tell her about it later but, just as she herself had told Castle yesterday, she couldn't force the confidence by barging in on them. And even if Castle didn't tell her about it, that was fine. Her own curiosity didn't matter. As long as Castle and Alexis made up, that was really the most important thing, she told herself. And meant it. Really, she did!
As the CSU tech had predicted, it really was a matter of minutes before she heard the fax machine go off. Kate almost leaped out of her seat and rushed over to the machine to grab the results the moment it was done printing. And then stared at the sheet.
Well, that was a twist she hadn't seen coming. But it made sense in a messed-up way—one brother whose life had taken a different, honorable path after earlier missteps and then the ultimate betrayal. (God, she'd been spending too much time with Castle when her thoughts were starting to sound so dramatic.) But it did make sense, drama aside. Who better than Joe's own brother to have not only known about Joe's medication but also had easy access to them to tamper with the pills? Means and opportunity were obvious, motive somewhat less so but still easily filled in.
They needed to bring in Eddie McUsic.
She looked around for Espo or Ryan but couldn't see them and went to look for them, only to be brought up short as she rounded the corner to the hallway and stopped abruptly at the sight of a familiar red head. "Oh. I'm sorry," she blurted out, preparing to backtrack the way she'd come. She could kick herself for her bad luck and timing. And after she'd tried so hard not to disturb them.
"No," Alexis immediately spoke up. "You can stay, Kate. I was just leaving."
"You sure, Alexis? I can wait."
"It's fine. We're almost done," Alexis assured her. She turned back to Castle, meeting his eyes. "It won't happen again, Dad," she told him quietly. "Promise."
That said, the girl stood up and patted Castle's shoulder lightly, the familiarity of the gesture reassuring Kate more than almost anything else that Castle and Alexis's relationship was back to normal. "I'll see you guys later," she said.
"Bye, Alexis."
Kate and Castle both watched her go until she stepped into the elevator before Castle turned back to face Kate.
"You okay?" she asked. She had more questions but the middle of the precinct wasn't the place to ask them so she settled for the most basic inquiry.
"Yeah," he answered with a little sigh before he blinked and managed a faint smile. "But sometimes ignorance is bliss."
"Tell me about it." Kate held out the folder with the fingerprint results in it.
"Are those the results?" he asked, immediately distracted. "Whose prints were on the button?"
"See for yourself."
He did and she saw his jaw drop a little. "You've got to be kidding me," he blurted out.
"Nope. Come on, I was just about to tell the boys to bring in Eddie McUsic."
Castle snorted a little as he stood up. "Yeah, that's for sure. To quote Ricky Ricardo, he's 'got some 'splaining to do.'"
Castle's mimicry of the Cuban's signature line was fairly decent and Kate couldn't help her smile. Yes, Castle was definitely himself again.
It didn't take long to break Eddie McUsic, who was not a criminal mastermind by any means, and it turned out there was still another final surprise in the case as Eddie's story pointed to another culprit: Stephen Addison.
Money—or the lack of it—really had been the underlying thread that connected all the disparate pieces of evidence, the money Joe had used to bribe his way onto the jury, the money the Addisons had contributed to the DA's campaign, the money of the Addisons compared to the lack of it for the McUsic brothers. Money and power—the quintessential motives for a crime and the cover-up.
She and Castle watched as the Captain got off the phone with Williams's attorney and then signed the paperwork that would authorize the charges against Otis Williams to be dropped. Ryan and Esposito were bringing in Stephen Addison now.
"Nice job, Beckett," Castle commented. "Living up to the ideal of doing justice, without fear or favor."
She smiled slightly. "You too, Castle. Thanks for the help."
"See, I'm helpful!"
She rolled her eyes. "And annoying," she inserted dryly.
"You shouldn't be mean to me when I was helpful on a case," he pouted.
She had the sudden urge to kiss the pout off his lips but squelched it immediately. They were in the middle of the precinct and Captain Montgomery was in full view. Instead, she only nudged his arm teasingly and then straightened up as the Captain joined them to watch as the boys led a sullen Stephen Addison off to the holding cells.
It occurred to Kate as she briefed the Captain about the physical evidence that CSU had found that Stephen Addison, despite his clean-cut, aristocratic good looks, had the makings of quite a sociopath in him, plotting so cleverly to kill Joe McUsic.
Castle asked about what would happen to the hapless Eddie and the Captain answered, only to break off at the abrupt reminder of his friend's fall.
The DA's career was finished, wrecked. Leaving aside the complete death of his political hopes, Kate was sure that he was going to be suspended by the bar, if not actually disbarred, for his concealing the evidence and going forward with the prosecution against Otis Williams. And he would likely face criminal charges going forward for malicious prosecution, solicitation, and probably as an accessory after the fact.
"Sir, I'm sorry about your friend," she ventured. She thought about having to arrest Royce with the pang of bitter emotion, betrayal and regret and a sharp stab of loss, that the thought of Royce always evoked now.
Montgomery sighed a little as they turned away since Stephen Addison was no longer visible. "Yeah. Lou screwed up. He did but that shouldn't take away from all the good he did."
"It's unfortunate that despite all that good, he's only gonna be remembered for this one bad thing," Castle responded.
It was the truth and she knew the Captain knew it; he was too much of a realist not to, but even so, he didn't acknowledge the harsh truth in words. It was only visible in the regret that shadowed his expression before he turned back. "Nice work, you two. Good night."
Kate checked her watch before she shrugged into her jacket. "Castle, I think if we leave now, we just have time to catch the evening showing of Forbidden Planet."
His response was to smile and then offer his arm to her. "In that case, would you like to go on a date to the movies, Detective?" he asked with exaggerated formality.
She laughed and took his arm. "Why, yes, Mr. Castle, I would."
They walked out of the bullpen together, Kate noting out of the corner of her eye that Stephen Addison's arrest was already on the news, camera flashes going off as the screen showed a crowd of reporters pursuing the Addisons as they fought their way to a town-car.
"And then there were none," Castle murmured under his breath.
Kate blinked, confused. "What?" She remembered the Agatha Christie book by that name but couldn't imagine what Castle meant.
He glanced at her. "Oh, I was thinking about the Addisons and how they went in the space of a year from having two kids, then one, and now they've lost Stephen too. Can't imagine how they feel."
"Yeah, it's tragic for them." They couldn't be blamed for the DA's illegal actions. Wanting the DA with his long years of successful criminal prosecutions to bring their daughter's alleged killer to justice was understandable and even if they had made some implied suggestion of a quid pro quo that their continued contributions to the DA's campaign would be tied to the prosecution, that was fairly standard behavior for big contributors.
"I don't know how they'll come to terms with the fact that their son killed their daughter and was probably such a different person from what they must have thought."
"An iceberg," she commented, remembering Castle's metaphor from yesterday and in this case, it was true. The Addisons must have believed they knew their own kids but would now have had all their delusions ripped from their eyes because Lyla's and Stephen's cocaine use would necessarily come out now too. Although under the circumstances, an addiction to cocaine was meaningless.
Castle grimaced a little and she knew he was thinking of what he'd said about teens being like icebergs yesterday. It was a segue to asking about Alexis but Kate bit back the question. She didn't want to ask. If Castle wanted to talk about it, he would tell her but she didn't want to force it. Anyway, they were almost at the Angelika so they wouldn't have much time to talk now.
She dropped Castle off at the theatre to buy tickets while she fortunately found a parking spot just a couple blocks away.
The opening credits were just beginning as they slipped into the theatre, taking seats in the back, mindful of Castle's irrepressible tendency to talk during a movie.
"I love this movie," he leaned over to whisper.
She turned her head to smirk at him and then, finding him so close, gave in to impulse and kissed him quickly. Just because she could this time (unlike last time, when his very proximity combined with having to resist her attraction to him had distracted her throughout the movie.) "I know. Now sshh."
She turned back to the movie as the opening narration began.
After a few minutes, he slid his hand to rest it on her knee. She smiled a little to herself in the darkness, her heart warming. He just liked to touch her. He refrained when they were in the precinct and had learned his lesson about distracting her while she was driving (after she'd snapped at him a few times) but whenever they were together anywhere else, he liked to touch her and did unless she indicated she wanted some space. Usually subtle touches to her hand or her arm or the small of her back but still, he liked to touch her.
But then his hand started to wander, inching up her thigh by slow degrees, making her skin heat and her breath grow shallow.
Hastily, she grabbed his errant hand and moved it to his knee, although she retained her grip on his hand to soften the gesture. "Stop it, Castle," she whispered quietly. "I want to watch the movie."
"Have I mentioned that your taste in movies is hot?" he leaned over to husk in her ear, sending a faint, reflexive shiver through her in reaction to the sound of his low whisper, the tickle of his breath against her ear.
She ignored her reaction, only shushing him again, and returned her attention to the movie.
Castle, heroically, refrained from commenting any further and soon enough, Kate was pulled into the story and the characters, as she usually was. She glanced over at him occasionally when the light from the movie illuminated his face enough to see his expression, just to enjoy his clear enthusiasm, the way he mouthed his favorite lines of dialogue along with the characters.
She and Castle exchanged grins as the end credits began to roll and Kate felt one of those moments of fellowship, the sense of closeness that came from a shared joy, one of those moments that happened so often with Castle but still surprised her a little. She and Castle were so different in so many ways but somehow, in spite of their differences, they worked. As friends, as partners, as lovers.
She wasn't sure how much of her thoughts showed in her expression but then again, knowing how well Castle seemed to read her, she guessed probably a lot, and then he leaned in and kissed her, softly, languidly, his tongue sliding over hers, his hand coming up to cup her cheek in his hand.
The kiss ended rather abruptly as the lights came back on in the theatre and Kate startled away from him while he huffed out a breathy laugh. "Living out the cliché of making out in the back of the theatre."
She smirked at him. "Well, it is a real date this time."
"I still think it was a real date last time too."
She let him see her rolling her eyes as she stood up. "That doesn't make it true."
"It was a date," he persisted. (Because of course he would.) "And as they say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, chances are it is a duck."
She laughed. "So you're comparing going out with me to a duck? And here I thought you were a writer."
He huffed at her in mock offense. "I'm just saying, it had all the characteristics of a date."
"Except that it wasn't a date. We were friends hanging out."
"Item one: we were both single and we went out to watch a movie and then had dinner and I paid for both the tickets and dinner."
"That's because you're a multimillionaire and you refused to let me pay for the movie tickets or for dinner. Anyway, I paid for the snacks."
"Item two: it was in no way work-related."
She had to concede that.
"Item three: I accompanied you back home afterwards."
"That doesn't count," she protested. "I was still staying at the loft then so it's not like you had any choice since we were going back to the same place."
"Well, I would have seen you back to your apartment if you'd still lived there."
"I still don't think that counts. Besides, you didn't kiss me goodnight."
"I don't always kiss women after one date," he declared primly.
She shot him a skeptical look.
"I don't! This one time, years ago, soon after Meredith left, I went out an awful date with a girl and by the end of the evening, I would sooner have kissed a tarantula than her."
He made a comical face of exaggerated horror and she couldn't help but laugh. "What was so bad about her?"
He gave a theatrical shudder. "She giggled," he answered as darkly as if giggling were a social solecism on par with advocating cruelty to puppies and kittens. "At everything. No matter what I said, she giggled in response and then said something like, 'oh Ricky, you're so funny.'" He pitched his voice into a high falsetto and Kate choked on a laugh.
He gave her a look. "Oh, you can laugh. Her giggle would have made nails on a chalkboard sound like a pleasant melody and you can bet that at the end of that date, I was almost ready to cut off my own ears like Van Gogh."
She gave in to her laughter and laughed until she had to lean against the side of her car to hold herself up. He gave her a narrow-eyed look but then he gave in and laughed as well.
He calmed himself sooner than she did. "I'm glad you find this description of my torment so amusing," he pretended to grumble.
"Sorry," she gasped out, not managing to sound at all sorry. "I was just picturing your face and you having to try so hard to be polite." She could picture his face. She knew the fake, somewhat strained smile he occasionally wore in public when he was trapped against his will. She'd been with him when he'd been accosted by an eager fan, the ones that Castle termed the 'loud octopus' fans, loud because they usually were, shrieking their recognition of him so that everyone in a half-block radius heard his name, and octopus-like because they were hands-y, tugging Castle into a hug before insisting on posing with him for a picture and usually wringing his hand as they enthused over how much they loved his books. Kate had gone to rescue him a couple times only to get something of the same treatment herself—the "oh my God, you're Nikki Heat!" reaction—and now Kate generally didn't try to intervene, because her being the inspiration for Nikki Heat meant that she usually made the situation worse. (Also, Kate wasn't nearly as good at faking pleasantries to total strangers like that and she detested that kind of public notice.) Castle was better at it and more experienced in extricating himself before too long and usually managed to do so while employing enough charm that the fan probably ended up half-swooning over him.
Fortunately for him and her, it didn't happen often. The vast majority of Castle's fans were star-struck enough to be respectful and polite. And even if they hadn't been, she knew that Castle honestly appreciated his fans so he generally dealt with fans with all the genuine good humor and kindness of his nature.
He only huffed in pretend disgruntlement and she managed to get her amusement under control.
"Okay, so you don't always kiss woman after one date," she conceded. "But you didn't have any reason like me giggling too much for you not to kiss me."
"Didn't we have this talk already? I didn't want to risk losing you so I wasn't going to kiss you unless I was sure you wanted it."
She hid her small smile, feeling her heart flutter. As much as she had sometimes wished that he would take the decision out of her hands and just kiss her senseless, as Lanie would put it, she couldn't deny that it did something to her to know how much he'd cared, even back then, how much he'd been holding back because he didn't want to lose having her in his life. Castle the impulsive, the risk-taker, but for her, because he cared so much about her, he didn't take the risk.
"Speaking of our first date, can we stop off at Remy's on the way for a burger? I'm hungry," he said plaintively.
Now that he mentioned it, she was hungry too. It was after 9:30 so it would certainly be a late dinner but what the heck. Their actual dinner earlier had been a hurried affair, Chinese that they and the boys had had delivered to the precinct, and then she and Castle had been interrupted and hadn't managed to finish eating because Otis Williams and his lawyer had arrived at the precinct for questioning. And after that, they'd been too distracted to even think of eating.
"Mm, and I haven't had one of their shakes in weeks," she mused aloud and he smiled at her.
That decided, she started her car and directed it towards Remy's. It wasn't directly on the way back home to the loft but it wasn't completely out of the way either.
"Item four of the list of reasons why the last time we went to the Angelika was a date," he began again and she rolled her eyes. She should have known he would return to the subject. He was persistent, she'd give him that. "And this is the last reason but I like to think it's certainly not the least important, I was already head over heels in love with you then."
Oh damn. Of all the disarming reasons. And he'd already known that he was in love with her then?
"You already knew that you loved me? When did you know?" she blurted out without even realizing she was going to.
"It was—and don't take this as encouragement to do this again—during that mummy case when you and the boys played that really mean trick on me with the coffee machine."
"You fell in love with me because I played a prank on you?"
"No!" He narrowed his eyes at her. "I told you not to take this as encouragement."
She suppressed a smile. It was so fun to tease him. "Then why?"
He lifted one shoulder into a half-shrug even as his expression softened, his gaze becoming wistful, dreamy. "You were laughing and your eyes were so bright and sparkling with green and I looked at you and I just knew that I wanted to see you smile like that every day for the rest of my life."
It was his expression, his tone, that really made her heart melt even more than his words. The closest she could come to describing it was that he occasionally used a similar tone when he was sharing some of his most precious memories of Alexis, as if every moment of the memory was a priceless jewel to be kept safe and only taken out occasionally to admire it. So much love and tenderness, mingled in with something like awe. And he was talking about her.
He blinked and then shot her a smirk that told her he didn't feel like dwelling on sentimentality. "Your turn, Beckett. When did you know that you were in love with me? No, wait, don't tell me. It was when you saw my rugged handsomeness and charm at the Storm Fall book signing."
"Hardly."
He pretended to pout. "Are you saying you didn't fall for me at first sight? But how can you resist my dashing good looks?"
She laughed aloud. Ridiculous man. "Easily, oh vain one."
He bridled in mock disgruntlement.
She hid a smile and relented. Because he really was adorable. "I knew that morning you made strawberry happy-face pancakes for the first time."
He turned to give her a soft smile but he kept his tone light. "You fell in love with my pancakes. Good to know. I'll remember that next time I do something stupid and need to make it up to you."
"Already planning ahead to the next time you make me angry?"
"First rule of a Boy Scout, Beckett, always be prepared."
She snorted. "You were never a Scout."
He grinned at her. "You remember that, huh?"
"You were being annoying. Of course I remember," she told him tartly. "I could have shot you for barging into my crime scene like that."
"Eh, I'm too cute to kill. Besides, think of all the paperwork you'd need to do if you shot me."
She had to laugh at his airy nonchalance as she found a parking spot near Remy's. "Plus I've gotten accustomed to having you around now."
He was humming idly under his breath when he joined her on the sidewalk and she smiled as she recognized the tune.
"'I've grown accustomed to her face,'" she sing-songed softly in tune with his humming.
He smiled at her as he slipped his hand into hers and continued with the lyrics. "'Her smiles, her frowns, her ups, her downs, Are second nature to me now, Like breathing out and breathing in.'"*
He broke off as they arrived at Remy's and he opened the door for her.
Susan, the head waitress at Remy's, positively lit up at the sight of them, waving. "Detective Kate and Ricky! It's been weeks since you've been here. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten about this place."
"I could never forget about you, oh, lovely Susan," Castle declared, giving the older woman one of his most charming smiles.
Kate hid a smile. The man was incorrigible but she couldn't help but appreciate the fact that he flirted so with a woman who was old enough to be his mother, using his charm not for his own purposes (although he did that too) but simply to make an older woman feel young and beautiful again. She didn't kid herself that she would accept Castle flirting with any other woman with such equanimity but then again, she also trusted that Castle wouldn't flirt with other women. He wasn't that man anymore.
Susan flapped a dismissive hand but couldn't hide her blush or the way her eyes lit up with pleasure at the words. "Pure flummery, Ricky, and don't think I don't know it." She turned to Kate. "I hope you're keeping a close eye on this one, Detective Kate. He could charm the very birds out of the trees and he knows it."
Kate laughed softly. "Oh I'm keeping an eye on him, Susan, don't worry. Someone needs to keep him out of trouble."
"Slander," Castle huffed. "I am perfectly capable of staying out of trouble."
"That's not what Alexis says," Kate retorted teasingly.
"Oh, how is little Alexis?" Susan chimed in as she ushered them into a booth and gave them menus. "It's been way too long since she's been in here." She fixed a look on Castle. "Bring her by to say hello some time soon, Ricky."
Castle nodded obediently. "I'll do that, Susan."
"You've raised a good girl in that one, Ricky," Susan told him approvingly.
For almost the first time in Kate's memory, Castle didn't preen or beam when someone praised Alexis but only managed a small smile. "I lucked out with her." It was what he usually said but the tone was off.
Kate shot him a concerned look and then hurriedly stepped in to make up for Castle's unusual taciturnity about Alexis. "We'll tell Alexis you say hello. She's doing well, just busy these days. You know she has a boyfriend now?"
Castle huffed.
Susan chuckled. "I bet Ricky doesn't like that one bit." She turned to Castle. "Don't worry too much, Ricky. Alexis is too sensible to fall for a bad boy."
"That's what I keep telling him," Kate assured Susan.
Susan smiled. "Good. You keep Ricky here in line so he doesn't scare off little Alexis's boyfriend," she said as she walked away to see to another patron who'd signaled for attention.
Kate turned to Castle. "You okay? I thought you and Alexis made up earlier."
"Oh, we made up. We both apologized and I deleted the GPS app and promised not to use it again and she told me what she'd been up to in Williamsburg and why she lied about it."
That all sounded fine. "But?"
He grimaced a little. "But now I'm worried over what she told me. Ignorance really is bliss."
"I can't believe it was anything so terrible, Castle. This is Alexis we're talking about."
"It's not that she did something bad at all, which is a relief. It was her friends."
He was being uncharacteristically cryptic. "What did her friends do?"
He hesitated, glancing around the restaurant, as if double-checking that they were the only patrons within a few booths of them. It was late enough after the dinner hour that the remaining patrons were mostly over at the bar and therefore well out of hearing distance. "It was over the weekend when Alexis was hanging out with a group of friends down in Williamsburg and they—" He broke off as Susan returned with water for them.
"So what'll it be for you two tonight?" Susan asked cheerfully.
"The usual for me and a strawberry shake, thanks," Kate answered quickly. She glanced at Castle, raising a questioning brow, and then at his imperceptible nod, added, "And Rick will have his usual with a chocolate shake."
"You two are really so cute together," Susan observed and then added, "I'll get these orders right in for you."
"Thanks, Susan," Castle answered with an attempt at his usual winning smile that would probably have fooled anyone except for her, Martha, and Alexis.
The moment Susan walked away, his smile vanished.
"What did Alexis's friends do in Williamsburg?" she prompted gently.
"They wanted to try shoplifting," he answered, his voice lowering even further on the last word until it was barely louder than a breath.
"Alexis said she couldn't but they all did and laughed at her about it but anyway, the reason Alexis went back to Williamsburg yesterday was to go back to that shop and leave some money on the counter to make up for what her friends had stolen the day before."
"Good for Alexis," Kate nodded approvingly.
He managed a brief flicker of a smile. "Yeah, I'm actually kinda proud of her."
"You should be. Alexis resisted peer pressure and that's hard to do, especially at her age. I couldn't do it when I was her age."
He gave her a skeptical look. "I have a hard time imagining you giving way to peer pressure, Beckett."
"You shouldn't. I was an insecure teen once too, Castle."
"What did you have to be insecure about? You're smart, gorgeous, kind, funny."
She couldn't help but smile at his matter-of-fact litany of compliments. "I think you're biased, Castle, and anyway you didn't know me back then. I went through a gawky phase and I was self-conscious about my braces when I had them, to say nothing of the usual concerns about not being cool enough."
He wrinkled his nose. "You have a point. I was never one of the cool kids in high school either, not like Dam—" he abruptly broke off, his expression darkening, before he finished more quietly, "not like Damian."
Damn Damian Westlake anyway.
"What's bothering you so much about what Alexis told you, Castle?" she asked wanting to take his mind off the memory of what Damian had done.
He grimaced and sighed. "I don't like knowing that Alexis has friends who were shoplifting. She wouldn't tell me which of these so-called friends of hers were involved but they sound like bad influences, trying to make Alexis shoplift as well. She shouldn't have to be sneaking back to stores to leave money on counters. She could get into trouble herself even if she's just trying to clean up her friends' messes. And if they're shoplifting, what other kinds of trouble are they going to be getting into?"
"Castle, they're teenagers, they're probably just experimenting with breaking the rules and shoplifting can be one of those stupid things that make teens feel cool, the hint of danger from doing something illegal. And to be fair, it's not nearly as dangerous as doing drugs or playing Russian roulette the way those prep school kids were doing in that one case a couple years back."
He practically shuddered at the memory of that case. "But that's the problem. How do I know that these friends of Alexis aren't going to be moving on to doing drugs or something?"
"You know who Alexis's closest friends are, Castle, and the sorts of kids Alexis is generally friends with. Does it really seem like Alexis would be friends with kids who were real, serious trouble-makers? I think she's too sensible for that," she told him reassuringly.
"But shoplifting, Beckett? Breaking curfew and ditching class to hang out at a mall or something I understand but stealing seems a little much."
Castle was generally an easy-going parent but as much as he teased Alexis about not getting into trouble, she also knew that he was glad and proud that Alexis was so sensible and responsible, torn between his wish for Alexis to learn to live life to the fullest and his understandable need to keep Alexis as safe and sheltered as possible. And then because Alexis had almost never given him much reason to worry, whenever she did do something that seemed remotely like trouble-making, he tended to over-react, his imagination getting the better of him.
"I think you're making too big a deal out of this," she told him mildly. "A little shoplifting on a dare is a fairly common thing for teens to try out. Didn't you or your friends ever try it when you were in high school?"
"My mother taught me not to steal," he answered loftily and then added, in a more usual tone, "Besides which, the boys at Edgewyck prided themselves on being rich. They were the type to buy everything in sight just to prove that they could. Their rebellions tended to involve girls, cigarettes, and alcohol."
She supposed that made sense, from the sort of place that Edgewyck had been according to what Castle had told her.
"Well, maybe you never tried shoplifting but some of my friends and I tried it once when I was in high school."
He gaped at her. "Shoplifting, Beckett? Really? You?"
She smirked a little at his shock. "Don't look like that, Castle. It was a stupid dare between my friends and me for all of us to take some little thing. My parents never knew anything about it." She paused and then added lightly, "Don't tell my dad."
"What did you take?"
She couldn't help but laugh a little. "It was a silly Star Trek pen, one of those where part of the tube of the pen was clear and inside was a little miniature of the Enterprise and if you tilted the pen one way or the other, the Enterprise would move. I think it was worth a couple bucks at most. I slipped it into my backpack and then walked out of the store." Such a nonsensical thing to do, now that she thought about it, but at the time, it had seemed so daring to actually steal, in one of those instances of teenage reasoning—or lack thereof—that Kate could only laugh at now.
The beginnings of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. "You were a geek. A felonious geek," he amended after a moment."
She laughed. "So now you know the deep dark secret of my criminal past, Castle," she teased.
He clicked his tongue a few times in mock disapproval. "I know. And you the future cop. Beckett, I expected better of you."
She stuck her tongue out at him, which, of course, was exactly when Susan reappeared with their meals. Damn it.
Castle dissolved into laughter and Kate shot him a narrow-eyed look.
"Do you two need anything else?" Susan asked, smiling indulgently at Castle, who was red-faced from attempting to control his laughter.
"No, thanks, Susan, we're fine," Kate assured her.
"Enjoy your burgers," Susan told them with a quick smile before she moved on.
Kate shook a fry at him mock-threateningly. "I think you're a bad influence on me."
He smirked. "Didn't you know that already?"
"Yes, I knew already," she conceded, smiling in spite of herself. "But my point was that shoplifting once on a dare as it sounds like Alexis's friends did isn't that unusual. It's just one of those stupid teen rebellions so don't think of it like it's an automatic slippery slope to a life of crime. After all, I turned out okay, didn't I?" she quipped.
"More than okay," he agreed, smiling.
"See? I rest my case."
He laughed. "All right, Beckett, you've convinced me." He sobered. "Thanks."
She reached over and squeezed his hand briefly. "Anytime, Castle." She loved knowing that she could reassure him when he was fretting over Alexis.
For a long second, as their eyes met and held, they simply smiled at each other and Kate felt warmth bubble up inside her chest, remembering how Lanie had said they were lucky. They really were.
Then the moment ended and they both turned their attention to their food, conversation being sidelined in favor of eating.
She'd been hungrier than she'd realized. She closed her eyes in sheer pleasure as she took the first sip of her shake and then bit into her burger.
"Mm, this hits the spot," Castle said with satisfaction as he swallowed the first bite of his burger.
"Definitely," Kate agreed.
As usual, Castle finished his burger before she did and then, having finished his fries, reached over and stole some of hers.
She quirked her eyebrows at him teasingly. "Really, Castle? You're stealing my food after you practically had a conniption at the very idea that Alexis's friends tried shoplifting?"
He smirked and stole another fry. "It's not stealing if I do it openly; it's annexing," he retorted airily.
She rolled her eyes. "Somehow I don't think anyone in Burglary would agree with you on that. I know people. You might want to be more careful about stealing my food," she told him with mock seriousness.
"May I have some of your fries, please, Detective Beckett?" he asked with exaggerated formality.
"Yes, you may," she parroted his tone and then added teasingly, "Now, was that so hard?"
He promptly put on a beleaguered expression. "Yes, it was," he pouted.
She only laughed. Silly, adorable man. "Poor baby," she mocked.
His expression changed, abruptly softening, becoming absent but she oddly had the sense that he was still entirely focused on her. "That's the look," he murmured quietly.
"It's what look?"
"Your expression, when you laugh like that—that's the look that made me realize I was in love with you."
She felt her heart flutter, a blush rising in her cheeks. She didn't know how he did it, really. She wasn't some shy ingénue who blushed easily from a man looking at her. She was a cop; she'd spent time in Vice and seen plenty of the seamiest side of life and human nature. But oh the way he looked at her sometimes…
She really had no idea what to say. How could she possibly respond to such a statement? But she tried to cudgel her brain into some semblance of working order and finally managed to say, with rather forced lightness, "Convenient, then, that you can make me laugh." (He did make her laugh. She loved that about him.)
He smiled. "I pride myself on it," he responded quietly and then added, after a brief pause, his tone becoming brisk, "You should finish your burger, Beckett."
She took him at his word and did so, while he "annexed" more of her fries.
While she ate, he filled the silence with some of his usual patter, first enjoying quite shamelessly how much his mystery writer poker group buddies were going to envy him getting to work on this case and then shifting to essentially brainstorming aloud about the courtroom mystery that he would write based on the McUsic case. He was such a storyteller. It occurred to her, not for the first time, that Alexis's bedtime stories when she was little must have been quite something. Kate made the occasional snarky comment but otherwise, she indulged him in his prattle. Because she, well, she liked to listen to him talk, at least in these idle times when she wasn't at work, liked to hear the way his mind worked. (Not that she would tell him that. She wasn't about to encourage him.)
Castle's story-spinning lasted for the rest of their late dinner until after Susan brought the check over.
"No top-secret CIA conspiracy, Castle? I'm shocked," she teased.
"Every story can't involve a CIA conspiracy or it'll start to get predictable."
"And of course you can't have that happening."
"Predictability is the third rail of mystery writing," he told her loftily as he paid the bill. Kate had, for the most part, given up on trying to pay when they went out to eat. She wasn't entirely comfortable with that but she'd given way because she knew how much it meant to Castle, part of his love of taking care of the people he cared about.
"Now, don't leave it so long between visits, you two," Susan scolded them mildly.
"We won't," Kate assured her.
"I could never keep myself away from seeing you," Castle declared.
Susan laughed. "You don't fool me, Ricky. I know you come here for the burgers."
"Well, I wouldn't come nearly so often for the burgers if it weren't for the pleasure of seeing your lovely face," Castle proclaimed flamboyantly. Kate hid her smile; he was definitely Martha Rodgers's son.
Susan flapped a dismissive hand at him but couldn't hide the way her eyes brightened, her cheeks flushing with pleasure. "Oh, get along with you, Ricky. Save your flattery for Detective Kate. You two take care of yourselves now and don't forget to bring little Alexis with you some time soon."
"Bye, Susan."
Kate waved her farewell to the older woman as they left Remy's and slipped her hand into his, partly for warmth since the March night was a little chilly and mostly just because she could. Because this time, it really was a date and he was kind of adorable.
"A dollar for your thoughts, Beckett."
She smirked at him. "A whole dollar, Castle? How extravagant of you," she quipped.
He shrugged. "Your thoughts are always worth more than just a penny to me."
"I wasn't thinking about anything much. I just… like you, that's all."
He laughed softly and dropped a kiss on her hair. "That's good because I like you too, Beckett."
She smiled, warmth blossoming in her chest. It was silly, irrational really, for the words to affect her so but for some reason, at that moment, it seemed… important. They liked each other and maybe that was what made their relationship, that she still thought made little sense on paper what with all their differences, work. As much as Castle could annoy her at times, they genuinely enjoyed each other's company and maybe it was as simple—and as complicated—as that.
~To be continued…~
* The lyrics Castle and Beckett sing are from "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face" from the musical My Fair Lady, by Lerner and Loewe.