Chapter 2

"What the hell?" Beckett exclaimed. "Take me back!"

"Or?"

"Or I'll go myself." She snapped her own fingers, and began to fade. Castle grabbed her hand, and the fading stopped.

"No, you don't," he said smoothly.

"What are you?"

"I could ask you the same thing." Castle smiled rather nastily. "But since you ask, I'm a Finder. So when I suspected you weren't exactly human, I decided to test it. So, what are you, since you're not human?"

Beckett glared at him, and tugged to try to remove her hand. Castle didn't let go. "Nope," he said. "We're staying here for now. No fading out." The glare intensified. "Nope," he repeated. "What are you?"

"Poliad," Beckett begrudged.

Castle stared. "What?"

"Poliad," she reiterated, and didn't add anything further.

Castle's brow creased in thought, but he didn't release her hand. He wasn't going to risk her slipping away from his nook in the fabric of the universe. "Poliad," he mused, lingering on the word. "Now, why am I thinking of dryads? Spirit…many-faceted spirit? No. Poli… I got it! Spirit of the city?"

Beckett nodded sulkily.

Castle grinned. "I should have guessed it right away, but you hid it – which, my dear detective, was wholly unkind. Of course I'd have believed you."

"That's because your mind is as empty as the Mojave desert. Anything could fall into it and be believed."

"My mind has plenty in it. I'm just not as mundane as you," Castle flashed back. "And I'm right. You weren't human."

"Nor are you," Beckett bit. "And I've spent my life making sure nobody finds out. Why'd you have to pry anyway?"

"Why were you creating evidence?"

"I was not! That footprint had been there, I recovered it. How dare you suggest I falsified evidence!" She snapped her hand down, broke his grip, and disappeared, leaving Castle staring at the space where she'd been.

On balance, that hadn't been a smart thing to say.

Beckett arrived back in her apartment, raging fit to level the block, the street, and indeed most of the state of New York. Imply she falsified evidence, would he? She would never, ever falsify evidence. Never! Every perp she brought to justice was provably the murderer – proved by normal, human, proper means – every single step of the way.

Five minutes later she was dressed and pounding the streets of Manhattan, emanating white-hot fury from every pore. As she passed, traffic honked vicious, angry horns; shouts split the air; arguments spilt bitterness and ire across the sidewalks; storekeepers became sarcastic to shoppers who were already snappish; dogs growled, whined and snapped; babies howled and screamed in temper. Turmoil roiled in her wake.

As much as the city affected her, she could affect the city around her. Normally, she controlled her emotions – or at least the less pleasant emotions – far better, so that there was no feedback. Castle's comment, however, had cut her to the quick, and control was the last thing on her mind. Fortunately, before real trouble occurred, she reached Central Park, where there were far fewer people at this late hour. The few dogs being walked still growled, but gradually, as she ran further, her anger diminished to a controllable level.

She turned for home, not admitting to herself just how deeply Castle's words had hurt her, covering it all with thick layers of anger and squashing down any remaining upset. She'd almost thought he might have a good point, but not any more. The city murmured sadly to her.

Castle had remained in his Finder's hide for some time, considering what to do, while maintaining a tendril of awareness into Beckett's apartment. As he'd fully expected, she'd left instantly, no doubt so that he couldn't return. She was wrong about that: a Finder could go where he or she pleased, but he wouldn't invade her privacy so.

At least, not now, when she'd rather shoot him than not. While bullets wouldn't kill him, it would be uncomfortable for a few days, and rather hard to explain. Instead, he stepped out of his lair and into his study.

He supposed, rather unhappily, that he'd have to apologise. He hadn't meant to imply she was falsifying evidence – the few weeks of shadowing had shown him that every scrap of evidence she found was backed up, provable in court, and subject to chain of custody. Now, when he wasn't subject to her ire and scowling glare, he could see that his words of creating evidence had been wholly ill-chosen. She'd been finding evidence, albeit evidence that only she could find, which, he expected, allowed her to find evidence that everyone could see and check.

That determined, he began to think. Naiads and dryads, of course, he knew; oreads to a lesser extent. Poliads, a word that existed nowhere in his enormous vocabulary and, when searched, nowhere as a noun in the dictionary; had never come in his way. Until now. He supposed that cities could have spirits just the same as trees, rivers, or mountains – heaven knew, even Manhattan alone was far larger than most forests in this modern day, so it made sense that the heaving mass of humanity and traffic should produce its own soul.

He had to say, Beckett didn't exactly resemble his idea of a spirit. He'd always thought of spirits as ethereal, half-seen, translucent or transparent – ghostly, almost. Beautiful, sure, but that was almost the only point on which his mental picture of a spirit matched Beckett. Spirits were less…

Less definite. Less present; less sharp and commanding; less…everything. Beckett was unmissable; without ever trying she was always in charge, in the centre, alpha in the room.

In a way, that matched New York City perfectly. Whichever city or town one might think to be the best in the USA, whichever might be thought to be the heart of the country, whichever one might believe to be leader of the pack – New York City had a certain something that couldn't be denied. You had to notice it. Love it or hate it, you had to notice it: New York City couldn't be ignored.

Nor could Beckett be ignored, at least not if you were Castle. She had haunted his dreams since she'd stalked up to him, bristling dislike, flaunting her shield and ignoring his flirtation – but he'd seen the flash of desire in her eyes, dislike or not; and when she'd told him that he had no idea – well, he had plenty of ideas, and was just dying to discuss them.

Except right now, she was likely planning fifty ways to kill your shadow. The thought didn't make his sleep come any easier.

Beckett reached the precinct the next morning in no worse a mood than usual before her second coffee: that was to say, she wasn't actively broiling fellow cops with the heat of her glare. Still, the precinct knew not to trouble her until after the coffee had gone down her throat.

Unfortunately, Castle had never arrived sufficiently early to meet a pre-caffeinated Beckett – until today. He ambled in, concealing his considerable nervousness about Beckett's likely reaction to seeing him, and, not seeing Beckett, ambled straight into the break room, where he almost ran her over.

"Hey," he carolled.

"Urgh."

"It's a beautiful morning."

Beckett continued to make her coffee, without responding. Castle, who didn't like being ignored, manoeuvred his way to the coffee machine, and began to make his own brew, not incidentally brushing Beckett's side along the way.

"Watch where you're going," she snipped.

"You do speak!" Castle marvelled. "I thought you'd gone mute."

"If only you would," Beckett muttered. "Then I wouldn't have to listen."

"Mean."

"I don't want to talk to you," Beckett said crossly. "Go shadow someone who meets your ethical standards." She threw the remains of her coffee down her throat, and started to march out.

Castle put himself between Beckett and the doorway, clutching his coffee cup in front of him in the hope that it would provide some defence – or at least stop any bullets before they hit him. "I'm shadowing you," he said. "I'm" – she'd gone. When he looked around, she was behind him, half way to her desk. He caught a tiny glimpse of light through the sharp edge of her shoulder, quickly gone as it…solidified? She'd walked through him? Or through the doorframe? She couldn't have squeezed past him without him noticing: not in full corporeal form: he had blocked the entire doorway. He wandered out, and plonked himself down in his usual, uncomfortable chair.

"Go away," Beckett ordered.

"Won't," Castle said childishly. "I'm your shadow and I'm staying right here."

"Despite my lack of ethics or morals?" Beckett bit. "I'm surprised. Or are you featuring a corrupt cop in your next piece of pulp fiction? If so, go find one. Despite what you believe, we don't have any of those in my team."

"Just supernatural impossibilities," Castle bit back, forgetting any impulse to apologise.

"We could solve that in an instant. Just walk out that door and we won't have any of them. That'll solve your problem with supernatural impossibilities," she spat at him. "Since you don't respect my professional abilities, you don't get to stick around. Leave."

"No." Castle leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "I'm not going anywhere and if you try to make me we'll end up back in my Finder's den. How're you going to explain disappearing in the middle of the bullpen, huh?"

"How are you?" Beckett hissed back. "People are used to me moving fast. You won't get away with it. Now get lost and let me work."

"Montgomery'll back me" –

"When I tell him you accused me of falsifying evidence? Wanna bet? You'll be out of here so fast the floor'll catch fire."

"That wasn't what I meant!"

"It was what you said. You said I created evidence. That's falsifying evidence and perverting the course of justice. So you accused me of felonies."

"I didn't mean that!"

"Oh, really?" she said, enough scepticism to drown Area 51 in her voice. "You, the famous author" – her tone would cut diamond – "can't use the words he intended? Yeah, right." She turned a glacial shoulder towards him, picked up her pen, and wiped his presence from her mind. She had work to do. Rick Castle, whether some supernatural sleuth or just a pain, was not required.

She wrote out a list of areas for street camera footage and, still magnificently ignoring Castle's existence, swung over to discuss it with Ryan, who rapidly agreed to acquire the videos. After that, she returned to her desk to consider the four attempts at names and addresses which Calver's mother had provided, and found to her annoyance that three of them lived uptown from the subway station to which she had traced her perp. She swished irritably back to Ryan and Espo.

"I'm going interviewing," she announced. "These guys. Ryan, you stick with the cameras, Espo, any chance we can get phone records in less than a week?"

"I put the request in yesterday, and I'll chase up shortly," he said. "And if I don't get it by lunchtime, I'll chase again, along with bank records."

"I had a thought," Ryan said. "Maybe our vic had a storage unit or something like that. When we get bank records I'll look it up. His mom didn't say anything about having anything of his, from what she told you."

"No. Good idea. Let me know."

Beckett swished back to her desk, picked up her jacket, and swished out, without a word to Castle.

Some five minutes later, having thought, rather stupidly, that she'd gone to the restroom (why on earth would she take her jacket to the restroom?) Castle realised that she'd actually left. Gone to interview without him. Well, that was not the deal.

He picked up his own jacket, wandered out, and, since the elevator was empty and had no surveillance, reached a Finder's tendril through the ether, found Beckett's supernatural signature, and appeared in the passenger seat of her unit, carefully calculated to be at a point when her car was safely stopped. A crash would help no-one.

"What the hell?" she screeched. "Get out of my car!"

"I shadow you," Castle said firmly. "So you don't get to leave me behind when you're doing interesting things" –

"Like inventing evidence?" Beckett jabbed.

"I said I didn't mean it that way! What do I need to do to stop you going on about it?"

"You could start with a sincere apology. Or any apology. Did that cross your mind?"

Castle shut his mouth with a snap. Had he not apologised? Surely he had apologised. He thought back over the previous evening and this morning.

Oh. Oh, shit. She'd gone before he could, and this morning they'd simply fought. I didn't mean it – didn't cut it. He'd told Alexis that a million times. "I'm sorry," he said, and achieved sincere penitence.

"Fine," Beckett snipped off. "You can get out of my car and go home now."

"No. I'm coming along to these interviews. And while we're on the way, you can tell me how you knew it's this one not the other three."

"There are three out of the four addresses this way. Logic and efficiency say go uptown first. But whatever you think, I don't have to take you."

"So shall I call Montgomery and tell him that you won't?" Castle said nastily.

"Go right ahead. And I'll file a harassment suit against you and cite Montgomery for facilitating it," Beckett said equally nastily. "How long do you think you'll last if you get Montgomery into trouble?"

Castle recognised a bigger threat than he'd managed. "Look, I said I'm sorry and I meant it. You find evidence. It's just weirder ways than CSU."

Beckett didn't exactly want to provoke a full-scale scandal which, unfair as it might be, would blow back on her with far more venom than on Castle. She'd love to shove his apology back down his throat and then shove him out of the car, preferably into the Hudson, but…that would be going low. She could be the better person here.

"You can stay," she emitted, through gritted teeth and with no pleasure at all. "But the next time you imply I'm not totally ethical, you're gone. I don't care how much trouble it causes me."

Castle stayed blessedly silent for a full five minutes. Unfortunately, it didn't last.

"How did you get past me in the break room? It looked like you dematerialised, but only some of you."

Beckett didn't answer.

"C'mon. How did you do it?"

Silence.

"Look, I can do it too," he said, and waved a hand through her arm. Beckett was so surprised she brought the car to a halt.

"You can do it too?" she squeaked, shocked out of her socks and her fury. "How?"

Castle had a different thought. "I felt you!" he exclaimed. "I never felt anything before. That was weird. Like walking through hot fog." With at least one significant difference. Hot, sure. He was heated.

Beckett didn't say anything.

"Did you feel something too?" he asked excitedly. "What did it feel like?"

"I have a job to do," Beckett said coldly.

"But" –

"Work." She didn't want to discuss anything about the last three minutes. She'd never felt anything when she dematerialised, partly or fully. Her component atoms simply slid through the other thing's component atoms without any sensation whatsoever, and that was just the way she liked it. She certainly didn't want to feel anything.

And yet she just had, and every nerve she possessed was telling her all about it. It was infuriating. Castle had proved himself to be an insulting, insolent jackass and he had no right to be the only other…oddity…she'd ever met, still less had he any right to wave his hand through her and leave her heated up like this.

She slammed the car into gear and pulled out, heading for the first address, ignoring with venom every attempt at conversation that Castle made. Dumb idiot. Couldn't even see the need to apologise until told to. She didn't admit that she was majorly disappointed in him, still less that she'd been getting a little closer to liking, right up till he'd ruined it all the previous night.

Neither the first nor the second address brought her any joy, though to protect her eventual arrest and prove that she'd done all the right things, she interviewed both men thoroughly, recorded their whereabouts for checking of alibis, and requested – and, more unusually, received – consent for DNA and fingerprint testing, which she did on the spot, sealing the evidence in each man's presence. As she left, faint whimpers of terror pursued her. Beckett's ability to intimidate a witness, a suspect, or an entire room owed a lot to her ability to affect the city around her, and she wasn't shy to leak a little feeling to…create the right atmosphere.

"Last one this end of the city," she said flatly as she parked. Castle, feeling oddly nervous and completely unsure why, followed her up a grimy hallway to a grimier door. "Jonas Salter." She rapped authoritatively on the door. After an irritating delay, Beckett tapping her long fingers on her pants leg, the door creaked unpleasantly and opened, releasing a waft of unwashed human, stale food, and more than a hint of weed.

"Yeah?" The occupant needed to take a shower, or maybe three showers, and preferably shave. He was tallish, skeletally thin, and pock-marked.

"You Jonas Salter?"

"Yeah," he yawned. "Whaddya want?"

"To talk to you," Beckett said sharply, projecting intimidation. Behind her, Castle shivered, for no reason that he could understand.

"Yeah? 'Kay." He stepped back and allowed them in.

Beckett didn't even try to sit down, for fear of catching something fatal. She glowered at Salter, already knowing that he was her perpetrator. "Darren Calver. He was a pal of yours."

"Uh?"

"Darren Calver."

"Dar?"

Beckett wished that slapping witnesses sober – or out of their high – wasn't forbidden.

"What about Dar?"

"He's dead."

"Naw. He's, like, faking it."

Beckett amped up her intimidation level. "He is dead. He is in the morgue. Someone hit him over the head. Now, you're coming with me till you sober up enough to have a sensible conversation."

"Don't wanna."

"Come, or be arrested."

"Arrested?" he muzzed. "Naw. Didn't do nothing."

"Then come with me."

"'kay. I'm hungry," he said plaintively, which didn't surprise Beckett one tiny bit, if he'd been smoking weed. "Can I bring my pizza?"

"Yes," she said, waited just long enough for him to pick it up, and then marched him down to her unit. He didn't seem to care.

Back at the precinct, Beckett stuffed Salter into Interrogation One, where he continued munching on what was left of his pizza, and then took a short and necessary break. Everyone would think it was to the restroom. Well, yes, but she was actually bleeding off her stress and annoyance into the walls, which would absorb them for her and refresh her so that she could interrogate sensibly. She could afford to take a break, get some lunch, and wait for Salter to come down from his chemical happiness.

She wandered out, took a look around, and spotted Ryan, looking very satisfied.

"Footage?" she asked.

He jumped, then grinned boyishly. "Yep. Wanna look?"

"Sure."

Ryan started to run the footage. Beckett started to smile. "That looks like my new friend, down in Interrogation," she said happily. "Can we go right back to the very beginning?"

"Sure."

"Oh, dear," she said insincerely. "Looks like Calver was hit with a baseball bat. And that looks very like my suspect, hitting him."

"Guess you'll just have to arrest him."

"Oh, I think I'll get a confession first." She bared her teeth. "More fun that way."

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.