A/N: New POVs in this chapter.
Javier Esposito was getting annoyed. He was supposed to be having the perfect night: romantic dinner with his beautiful girlfriend, watching tv curled up together on her couch, and certainty that the night would end in mind-blowing sex. That schedule was still intact, yet for some reason his thoughts kept drifting to his partner, Ryan. And no matter how much he loved that skinny dork, the burly detective was not interested in thinking about him while he was getting down to business.
Javier had gotten back together with Lanie when they left Castle's Christmas party to 'reconnect'. Just like every other time they had rekindled things, the stunning medical examiner expected him to woo her all over again. He couldn't afford to let his focus slip and risk her thinking that meant he wasn't invested, potentially setting a new record for their fastest break up. But the cop in him couldn't let go when he knew his friends were hiding things. The part of Javier that was fixating on Ryan was the same part of him that had relentlessly searched for the identity of Beckett's mystery boyfriend when she first started dating Castle.
Ryan had been acting strangely ever since the younger detective returned from picking up lunch the day before. He didn't need to question why though. His behavior wasn't entirely unfamiliar to Javier, he'd certainly seen it before the way his best friend would smile nervously to himself throughout the day and constantly check the clock anytime he had a big date. It had just been a long while. Esposito also didn't need to wonder who his partner would be going out with. He was the only real witness to the way Ryan and Alexis had been dancing around each other. After seeing the two of them sneak off for a quickie at The Old Haunt, Javier knew it was only a matter of time before things escalated. The real mystery was why Ryan had neglected to mention anything about the date to him. There's no way his best friend could doubt that he'd have his back.
Javier was pulled out of his thoughts by a hand waving in front of his face. "Did you even hear a word I just said to you?" Lanie asked frustratedly.
Uh oh. He hadn't. This was the exact pitfall he'd been trying to avoid. In a last-ditch tactic to save himself, the former special forces soldier blurted out "Ryan is sleeping with Castle's daughter!"
Immediately Lanie's expression shifted from angry to curious and she peered up at him with wide eyes. "Ryan? With Alexis?" she pulled him to sit on the couch, tucking her legs underneath her and staring at him with rapt attention, like it was the most interesting gossip she'd heard in years. "I need you to tell me everything you know."
"Sorry, baby. I really shouldn't say anything," the detective tried to backpedal.
"Oh no you don't!" the petite woman was only a fraction of his size, but more than intimidating enough for him to concede. She smacked his arm as she demanded, "You're going to tell me right now."
Javier gave in easily, not subtle in his excitement about finally having someone to join him in the peanut gallery, watching the drama play out. "The first time was back at Halloween," he explained, before giving his girlfriend a modified recap of the events of that night. He opted to leave out what, or rather whom, he had been doing while Ryan and Alexis were getting it on.
"So, Ryan's been hiding this from Castle for months?" Lanie questioned, eyebrows raised. "I'm surprised our boy had it in him."
"The leprechaun's got a horseshoe up his ass or something, because it's all luck," Esposito retorted. "He's completely obvious when she's around. I don't know how nobody else has picked up on it yet. And don't even get me started on what a miracle it is that I'm the only one who saw them sneak off together during Castle's Christmas party."
Lanie looked shocked at the revelation. "Is Ryan okay?" she asked her boyfriend seriously. "I know that he's been going through a hard time with Jenny and the divorce, but this is very out of character from him. I mean you know him better than I do, but I can't imagine the Kevin Ryan I know risking his friendship with Castle like that just to fool around with a beautiful, young girl."
"That's the thing," Javier elaborated. "I don't think it is just fooling around. I'm pretty sure they're going on a real date tonight. Ryan didn't say anything, but he can't hide this from me. He's got it bad."
Lanie hummed and looked off contemplatively, "You know I can actually kind of see it."
"Really? I'm still in shock and I've known for months."
"I got to know Alexis pretty well when she interned at the M.E.'s office," she responded. "Women talk about these things and Alexis told me her type is guys who are really sweet and kind of nerdy. It makes sense that she would take a liking to Ryan. And he's been like wounded puppy recently, so I'm not surprised he's drawn to someone who is very caring and nurturing."
"Well, that's a good thing, I think," he admitted slightly unsure. "Mostly I'm rooting for things to work out. I love Ry and he deserves some happiness, but there's a part of me that was hoping this would go away quietly before shit hits the fan at the precinct."
"You should be crossing your fingers that when Castle finds out about this you don't go down with the ship. You were there that first night. You're practically complicit."
"Whoa, whoa, slow your roll," Esposito insisted. "All I did was go to a club and dance. I was there, but I wasn't there. All I saw was Ryan leave with some girl in a mask, so I can't be blamed for any of it."
"Okay, detective. Keep your plausible deniability," Lanie chided playfully. "Was this what had you so distracted?"
"I'm sorry, baby. I promise, no more thinking about them tonight. Just you and me," with that he wrapped his strong arms around her, pulling her into his lap for a kiss.
She pulled away after a moment, "Good, but keep me in the loop from now on," then she leaned back in to resume kissing him.
Detective Kate Beckett went into work at the twelfth precinct at the crack of dawn this morning. She hadn't been able to sleep, so had opted to start the day early. For years she had found it impossible to sleep while sharing a bed with someone, but somewhere along the line she'd gotten used to her husband's comforting presence at night and it had become hard to sleep without him. Castle was out of town doing press for his upcoming book release, so Beckett was on her own not just in her bed, but when she made her way into the bullpen that morning.
There were no leads to follow on their current case until they could get a report back from the morgue, so Beckett busied herself catching up on paperwork until it was an appropriate hour to go bug Lanie for an update. The homicide detective watched several coworkers trickle in and drank two cups of coffee before leaving to visit the medical examiner.
Pushing through the metal doors, Beckett entered the bright, sterile room where her friend worked. The victim, a nineteen-year-old girl, had been found dead in central park the night before. Now her body rested on a steel table in the center of the room, as Lanie worked over it. They'd been able to ID her as Katya Alekseeva, an up-and-coming ballerina, with distant ties to Russian mafia.
"Hey Lanie. Any news on our victim?" she asked as she approached.
"Actually, it's victims. As in more than one," Lanie gestured to the corpse's feet where Beckett could now see that one had been severed and crudely reattached. Most importantly it clearly did not belong to the person it was attached to. "All of this amateur surgery was done postmortem. Both Katya and the owner of the foot were already dead before their feet were amputated."
"Wait, the killer replaced her right foot with somebody else's left one. It can't be a coincidence they gave a professional dancer two left feet," Beckett noted, knowing Castle will be so envious when she tells him what he missed.
The detective listened as Lanie reported the rest of her findings, making note of all the pertinent details, both for the case and for her husband. The two women were consummate professionals, so they exhausted their work topics before skillfully shifting the conversation to their personal lives.
"I know something," Lanie started, immediately piquing Beckett's interest. "And I want to tell you, but I don't know if you want to know what I know."
"Why would I not want to know?" the taller woman questioned. "When do I ever not like having all the information?"
"When the information in question has the potential to put you in an uncomfortable situation," Lanie answered knowingly.
"If it's something that could get either one of us arrested, then don't tell me. Otherwise, I want to know," Beckett decided.
"Ryan and Alexis are sleeping together!" she blurted out in a similar fashion to how she herself had received the news.
Beckett was stunned. She had never considered that Lanie could know something that would affect her family. She had incorrectly assumed the gossip would have something to do with work or be something that made it harder to look at Esposito without cringing. As a police officer she'd been trained to react calmly to any situation, but right then all Beckett could do was blink at her friend.
"How do you know this?"
"Javi told me. He's known for a little while, but he just told me because he suspects they started officially dating," Lanie explained.
"Dating?" Beckett asked, raising an eyebrow at the additional information.
She didn't know how to feel about this revelation. Beckett loved Alexis and felt protective over her, but she didn't raise her. She never saw Alexis as a little girl, her having already been a surprisingly mature teenager when they first met. It didn't translate into the same overprotectiveness that Castle displayed when it came to Alexis's love life. It definitely seemed weird that one of her coworkers could be dating her stepdaughter, but she'd always known Ryan to be a standup guy, and she didn't think he would ever hurt Alexis.
"Well, it looks like girl talk is over," Lanie said to her friend who was lost in thought.
"Right, sorry. I don't know how to process this," Beckett apologized, before saying goodbye to her friend and leaving the morgue.
Throughout the day, Beckett subtly observed Ryan. She didn't know how she'd missed that one of her team members was keeping a secret of this magnitude. She didn't catalogue any suspicious behavior from the young, Irish detective, but it still proved to be fruitful. Beckett hadn't been paying as close attention to Ryan's mood as his partner did, but most people had noticed his negative disposition after the split with Jenny. What she hadn't noticed was his gradual return to optimism. Now that she was paying attention, Beckett realized that Ryan seemed the most himself he had in months.
She was feeling conflicted. If two people she cared about could make each other happier, she wanted to support them, but Beckett didn't know if she had an obligation to tell Castle what she'd found out. She didn't know if her loyalties as a wife trumped her duty as a stepmom. There was no doubt that Castle would react poorly when he heard. He'd vilified Ashley and Pi when they dated Alexis, and they had been age-appropriate boyfriends he had no reason to feel betrayed by.
Beckett didn't want that for the new couple. They're both grown adults who deserved to reveal their personal lives to their friends and family on their own terms. If she thought that Alexis was in any sort of danger, she would never hide that from Castle, but she didn't agree with his assessment that all men posed a danger to his baby girl. Beckett didn't want to keep secrets from her husband, but she also didn't want to snitch on her stepdaughter needlessly.
When she arrived at the loft after work, for the first time since Castle had left town, Beckett was glad for the distance. Not that she hated his absence any less, but this provided her with the perfect opportunity to go to Martha for advice. The redheaded actress was flitting around the kitchen as Beckett made her way in, and greeted the detective cheerfully, "Hello, dear. How was your day at work?"
"It was fine, mostly," Beckett answered, but her cagey tone caught Martha's attention. "I heard something that I'm not sure what to do about. I was hoping you'd be willing to give me advice."
"Kate, darling, you should know by now that I will take any chance to hear myself talk. I may not have the answer, but I'll certainly give it my best shot," Martha promised.
"As a stepparent, do I have to tell Rick anytime I know something about Alexis?" the younger woman asked. "I wouldn't lie to him, but I was hoping I could just never bring it up."
"Oh my! You know who Alexis's mystery man is, don't you?" Martha caught the detective off guard with her question. "How bad is it?"
"You knew she was seeing someone?" Beckett inquired in response.
"She mentioned something about it, but she wasn't very forthcoming with details. Is this what you found out? I've been worried about why she felt the need to be so secretive."
"Yes," the brunette woman admitted. "She's seeing one of our friends, Detective Ryan."
"Is he a good man?" Martha inquired.
"The best. I trust him with my life. So does your son."
"Well then good for Alexis! He is very cute," she cheered on behalf of her granddaughter.
"You don't have a problem with it?" Beckett asked.
"As long as she's safe, she can make whatever choices she wants. I just want that girl to be happy. Don't feel like you have to say a word to Richard. He can be so melodramatic about these things."
Beckett had already been leaning towards keeping Ryan and Alexis's relationship a secret, but Martha validating that choice confirmed it for her. She loved too many people involved in the situation to take sides, so instead she prepared herself to run emotional interference for the impending conflict.
A/N: Lots of people know lots of things, but nobody really knows who knows what.
