Monday, October 27th, 2011
10:22 AM, East Village, NYC

It was chaotic in the city, but not as bad as expected. The news playing on Castle's iPad featured interviews from Times Square. Visitors from out of town were expressing alarm at being caught away from home with Harbinger bearing down. Local citizenry, meanwhile, were largely blasé in their comments, revealing an ill-advised lack of concern.

"I hope they're just posturing for the cameras."

"They make it sound so uncool to be prepared," Castle replied amusedly. "Classic Manhattanite reaction, don't you think? Silly to imagine a little thing like mother nature threatening our crown jewel of civilization. Take a good look. These are the people you'll be rescuing over the next couple days."

Beckett crinkled her nose at the thought.

By the time they entered the East Village it was nearing ten-thirty. With so many people hunkering down, parking on Fifth Street was hard to come by. They ended up nosing into a dedicated NYPD slot. Since returning to duty, the detective found herself plagued by an unconscious hitch to getting out of the car and going inside. So much had changed behind the familiar, pale stoned edifice. Amidst the pauses of evaluation, her mind turned automatically to Roy Montgomery. To her mother's case, which was never far from thought and now ran parallel to her former mentor in a way that made her abdomen clench.

Intermittent trickles of officers and civilian aids came and went.

"I heard your return was greeted with an ovation."

Beckett shifted with recalled discomfort in her seat but her lips pulled into a faint smile. "You'd think they'd never seen a gal walk in after taking a round to the ticker before."

"Amateurs," her companion grunted, playing along with a sniff and disdainful loft of his nose.

"All week it's been 'Lucky your heart is made of stone, Beckett', or 'That dumbass sniper—thinking you had a heart in the first place'." Kate rolled her eyes while quivering with mirth. "It's been kind of nice actually. I've fallen back into touch with some people I'd drifted apart from."

"As silver linings go, that's a fine one. I, ah, saw the piece they printed about you in the Times a few days ago. I noticed you didn't give them a direct quote to work with."

"Yeah, I'm such a popular gal." Thankfully, a press liaison from One-PP has been handling that mess on her behalf. Her fictional counterpart in Castle's writing made both the shooting and her return to work newsworthy. It was a headache she didn't have the time or patience to manage.

"You are though," her shadow stated, drawing her gaze. "This kind of attention might catapult a career if it were taken advantage of. Odds are good that whispers are being exchanged right now by people in positions of command who are waiting to see if you'll attempt to mobilize and do something with it. Adversaries who will try to shut you down quick and potential allies who would see your star ascend higher still, and theirs along with it."

That was an unsettling thought.

Beckett frowned and shifted in her seat. "I took the investigative career track specifically to avoid politics. I don't wear the right shoes for slogging through bullshit." She held her nose and poked out her tongue in needless illustration.

Her partner refused to be so easily deterred by humor. A larger point was being worked towards. She knew the signs. "You made that choice back when finding killers was all that mattered."

A raw scrape of indignation bled into her tone. "That still is all that matters."

"It isn't though," Castle continued mildly, touching at the crook of her elbow as she stripped off her seatbelt in preparation to exit the vehicle. It stayed the woman without direct permission from her brain. "It remains the driving force. I would expect nothing less. But your original hunt," the other continued with a lean of significance in his baritone, "has led you to facing off against bigger, meaner prey."

He paused to gauge her reception and must have glimpsed a willingness to listen that she was unaware of broadcasting because he went on.

"Whoever is behind your shooting made a grave error by going after you at such a flagrantly public venue. It was conceited, even petulant. In failure, they might have unwittingly opened a pathway for you to gain newfound armor and armaments in the form of potential rank, contacts, and allies who might join your struggle, even if it's ultimately for their own purposes." Another blip of assessment allowed him to scrutinize her narrowed eyes and pursed lips. "You disapprove. Why? Why wouldn't you seek to adapt as a hunter to confront a greater level of threat?"

"Why should I have to change anything? I'm an officer of the law. A graduate fresh out of the academy could take my mother's killer down if they had the necessary evidence in-hand. I don't need bars on my shoulder to do what I do best, Castle. And allies, really? I'm not ignorant. In politics, your so-called brothers in arms are about as trustworthy as the siblings of a shark fetus in utero." Said denizens of the sea are known to cannibalize one another even at such a tender stage of development.

"It's a different battleground than is your norm, granted. But…" Another shake of his head was given as if stumped on how to continue, yet he did without pausing long. "You're intelligent. Capable. I think you could do anything you set your mind too and I'm not the only one. People look up and listen when you talk. Like it or not—use it or not—that's a mark of a leader."

A hand lofted sharply between them. The writer conceded to the demand for silence while she struggled to tamp down the emotions that roiled beneath the surface, seething up from a veritable oubliette of blackness at her core. The woman couldn't explain why those compliments in particular affected her in such a negative manner. But they did and he needed to stop.

"Thankfully enough," she finally began through grit teeth, "this is my life we're discussing, which makes it my choice." The raised appendage lowered to rest upon one of Rick's, whose slightly pained expression at her words shifted to confusion from the unexpected contact. "Look, I'm glad you're thinking about it, okay? It's nice to know you're on my side. Our side," she corrected, and at that a slim smile did emerge from him. "I've thought this through and made my choice on how to go about it."

"Meaning what? You have a plan?"

"My plan is the same as it's ever been. It may not shoot me up through the ranks or get my face splashed across the papers, but it sees justice done. I don't know how else to do this and, to be frank, I'm not looking for another way either. I'm good at this job." The author only shook his head. It stung a bit to realize he didn't agree.

"That shooting did reveal one other thing about your adversary. It showed us he isn't afraid to be bold. Do you know why he did that?"

"I made myself an easy target at the cemetery."

"No," Richard snapped, drawing her eyebrows into a surprise arch. "There's nothing easy about taking a shot like that in front of dozens of NYPD officers. He did it anyway, though, because the man behind the assassin wanted you to know that he could. He's so secure in his position on the board across from you, he feels like he can get away with those kinds of blatant acts. It's a statement of power. You can't match that as things stand presently. And in the meantime, he's free to try again."

"We'll see about that," she returned levelly. "Come on. We need to get inside."

"Hey, Rick," one of the officers on the floor called as they stepped out of the elevator. Two other guys with him, all similarly outfitted in Hi-Vis all-weather gear, turned to regard their arrival onto the Homicide floor.

Castle squinted through the brighter glare of interior light, found his targets, and tipped his chin in greeting to the group. He paused in the main walkway when Beckett began to divert right towards her desk. The writer looked at her, back at the gaggle of uniforms further along, and then to her again, amusingly torn.

"Go play," the detective encouraged dryly. It won a grin from her partner, which strummed a quiet chord of mirth at her core. She answered with a light pinch of his cheek. "Make good choices." She'd only taken half a step apart before feeling the breadth of his hand clamp at her caboose. It jolted her internally, because…yeesh. It had been a cool minute since she'd felt a man's grip on any part of her body without there being an intent to harm attached or, as in Rick's case earlier that morning, to help.

"Yo, Beckett."

The jerk of her attention towards Esposito only stalled her for a moment, but by the time she'd whirled at the waist to confront her fanny's accoster Castle was already out of reach. A flit and flutter of her hazel eyes about the area didn't reveal anyone having caught his florid act.

As a rule, flirtations at the precinct were not altogether forbidden. If she stopped living at work, half of a life was all she would ever possess. That allowance wouldn't spare him from an eventual reprisal.

Unexpectedly, the realization that she was with him again and thus enabled to impose some form of penance made her grin. For a moment, her mind went wild with potential recourses. She'd make him watch Temptation Lane with her—oh! And blow him during each episode intro until she's trained a Pavlovian arousal for the show's theme music. Then download the song to her cell and play it in completely inappropriate places when he was least suspecting. Oh shit. That's awesome. Mental note: attempt this. For science.

Her colleague tried again, jarring her smutty mind loose. "Hello?"

Beckett twitched out of her thoughts and drew shutters of stoicism across her features while resuming the trip to her desk. Ryan joined his partner at their workstation as she was arriving at hers. "Hey," she volleyed back nonchalantly. Their unerring attention was felt as much as peripherally glimpsed. Nabbed. The desk drawer whined as she tucked in her purse and nudged it shut again. "What's up?"

"What is up?" Esposito returned immediately with smug amusement.

"Should we be offended," Ryan posed airily, "that she's been grumpy for the past week and is only now showing signs of good humor? I guess it could be related to seeing us again, huh? A kinda delayed blast of thankfulness for our consistency and positive impact on her professional life?"

Kate pointedly ignored them. The joints of her chair squelched in protest upon dropping into it. She popped the power button on her monitor, waggling the mouse to wake the machine.

"Sure," Javier chirped in reply. "Delayed. Like her arrival this morning. Must be nice to sleep in."

"I was up and sorting out precinct business before either of you even hit the snooze bar," the female detective fired back at them, goaded into a reaction. She clicked her way into her department email.

"Uh-huh."

"Spare us any details of the 'business' that put a smile on your face for the first time in three days." She looked up sharply. Ryan realized a moment too late what had been allowed to emerge. He mantled crimson, scrunched his face in a deep twinge of regret, and spun around in his chair.

Javier chortled appreciatively at both the jab and the other man's awkwardness. He was dressed in street clothes that morning, sand-blasted jeans and a dark green t-shirt. "It's good to see you two together again," he offered with a shred more authenticity. She watched his gaze track left to rest upon Castle.

Hers did the same.

Working at the One-Two has always been a good fit for her counterpart. What was true from the very beginning had not yielded any over time. In fact, it was just the opposite.

The gradual acceptance of his role in the terrible events of Llewellyn Matthews' madness—that is, acknowledging being another victim and not some twisted version of a collaborator—has changed everything, as the man himself claimed. The gaping uncertainty surrounding that critical moment of his youth became, with its at-long-last clarification, a resplendent aura of confidence. It didn't present like any previous egotism. Wealth, fame, and success had little to do with it. He believed in himself and that newfound faith was a game-changer. Subterfuges once employed to conceal had been torn down alongside any perceived guilt. The Nikki Heat series remained ongoing, but his presence at her side was legitimized months ago by Montgomery under the vague professional designation: civilian consultant.

Gone the irreverent playboy. Ascended their new detective in all but oath and gold shield.

Rick had been presented with an NYPD employee ID card at a private dinner that Roy and Robert Wheldon had thrown together. Heavens was he proud of it. First thing the man had done was order a custom-made badge wallet for it. He couldn't buy a normal one.

"No, see, it's just an ID card and the ratio of it to the leather surface of standard-issue is too much," Rick had decided at the time. "It would look pathetic without an actual badge in there too. This one, though, is designed as a hybridization of wallet and laminate holder, so it's both personally functional and professional. It's beautiful. If I was a suspect and this thing was flashed in my face by a guy, I would know that guy meant business. I'd be both intimidated and curiously aroused."

Heh. Different though he was, Castle still Castle. The way he plays was never a mere façade.

Thank heavens for that. Best of both worlds.

Good humor still prevailed, but in symbiosis to…what exactly?

More. So much more. It wasn't something the detective felt comfortable putting into words, but it was real. She has seen those blue eyes glimmer with mirth, soften with affection, narrow in fierce contemplation, and harden while fixated upon suspects across the interrogation table. They have shone with exultation for their victories and been shuttered by the desolation of charges that were mitigated by a slick defense attorney. She has watched them glaze with distance while taking their haltingly compiled accretions of evidence somewhere inside of himself to spin theories that have gone from silly and implausible to keenly perceptive and, at times, chillingly accurate.

'Perp-mode' she called it when he drifted apart to attempt connecting to killers' motives or mindsets.

There was plenty to like beforehand, but over the past year and change Kate has become quietly fascinated with her partner's mind. The deeper she glimpsed the truer that became. At times, the view was downright frightening. Part of her shrank from the horrors he summoned at a whim and spun into case theory. Flights of fancy and whimsy have largely yielded to pragmatic dissections by psychology and behaviorism. Even at its deepest and darkest it was nigh-entrancing to witness in action.

Watching Rick now, carousing with their fellows in blue nearby, one would be hard-pressed to imagine a man so well-acquainted with fear for the coldly turning gears of his own internal mechanisms. The other officers at the twelfth didn't see it. They looked at him more like a big brother lately, even a father figure in some cases. Rick's willingness for seriousness has lured them into gradually discarding their previous opinions and allotting a new cubbyhole of an estimation. It still boggled the woman to behold. Few things in the world are more difficult to change than someone else's mind. Yet it has been given freely in many cases.

That must speak to the fact that her partner's concealment as an irreverent playboy was never as seamless for others as it had been for her.

That tracks, doesn't it? Who was more afraid to believe in him than me? Who had more to lose by allowing themselves look deeper and hope for more?

The metamorphosis between half-glimpsed to more plainly visible has been bittersweet. Once upon a time, Beckett alone had been given glimpses at the magician behind the curtain. Now the reality was out there for all to see. People gravitated towards sources of charisma and character like moths to flames. Sometimes her partner seemed farther away from her than the bullpen realistically allowed to be the case.

It helped, Kate mused, that his intentions were clear by now and they were not focused solely on gleaning inspiration for novels or pursuing one dark-haired detective among their ranks. The whole time she was healing Castle had been shoulder-to-shoulder with everyone here, despite not being allowed to officially help on her case. He didn't respond to that obstacle by pulling political strings to produce a workaround. Instead, he dove head-first into assisting other teams on their cases, thus freeing up more manpower when those cases were solved. For once, he had toiled within the system instead of circumventing it. It showcased a new manner of resolve and respect. That, perhaps, was the determining factor behind the realignment of others' estimations.

It was for Esposito, who had been the one to explain what her partner had been up to in her absence. The Latin detective had spoken with characteristic matter-of-factness, but he couldn't hide his approval.

Rick called her a natural leader that people looked to when she spoke. What did that make him? Another example of the same?

No. You're something…else.

Beckett was still frowning in consideration when her cell phone chimed softly. A downward glance revealed a message alert from the 12th, which in turn had her focusing on her computer screen again. There was a short string of recent arrivals. Filters sorted most emails into designated folders: Forensics, CSU, M.E., Interdepartmental, DOJ, and several other dimensions of the NYPD. Messages that hadn't found a home included a few personalized notes welcoming her back to work. There was an email claiming to be sent from an office of INTERPOL, which elicited a lofted eyebrow. She deleted that one, assuming it to be either something sent in error or a virus waiting to gobble up her computer.

The alert-inducing new message was from the Captain, ordering her to check-in first thing.

Great.

"Gates?" Javier asked knowingly. Her wordless hum of confirmation prompted a cant of his head to indicate the sprawl of the bullpen behind him. "She's camped out in the war room. Brace yourself. There's been a steady stream of bars, stars, and suits since she took up occupancy."

Bar and stars. Ranking officers of the NYPD. The suits were no doubt civvies from the mayor's office and the myriad utility and transportation authorities. Every other precinct was likely facing the same influx of harried visitors. It wasn't a reason to be concerned, per se. Not with the storm bearing down. Still, Beckett gave herself a critical evaluation as she walked away from her desk, tucking in a loose fold of her undershirt and straightening the exterior top across her waistline.

She paused to duck her upper half into the break room doorway where she'd last seen Castle vanish. Words to hustle him along were already poised at her lips. The sight of him standing before the espresso machine, achingly familiar, was like watching a puzzle piece being deposited into its rightful location. A flawless fit. It scattered her intent like autumn leaves skittering across the pavement outside.

"Hey," Kate issued, and repeated herself when the word came out in a rasp too soft to be heard.

Rick turned, blinking through a rising gout of aromatic steam. "Hmm?"

"We're on. Almost done?"

"Oh, uh." He turned at the waist to present a fresh mug held gingerly at his fingertips. "I am with the one, anyway. I caffeinated on my drive early this morning though, so I guess this one can be yours."

She took the offering by the handle with a slow smile. "Thanks."

Castle held her gaze and matched her smile. "Welcome back, Detective Beckett."