Author's Note: In which Castle and Beckett meet and interact some more.
Then Came Love
Chapter 5
Kate slid into her car and for a moment, simply sat there. An uncharacteristic thing for her to do but then again, it looked like the next seven months—at the very least—were going to be full of uncharacteristic actions on her part.
Her doctor had just confirmed that she was, in fact, pregnant.
In the minutes she'd been waiting in the exam room for her doctor to arrive, it had occurred to her that this might turn out to have been nothing, just a scare. Home pregnancy tests weren't infallible; that was why a doctor needed to do another test to make it official, after all. The possibility had momentarily made her heart stutter, a strange whirl of emotions at the idea that she might simply be able to go back to her normal life, wouldn't have to prepare to leap into some huge unknown life in just a few months' time. She could drink coffee again. Wouldn't have to worry about dealing with Castle for the rest of her life.
It would be simpler but in that moment, as she'd considered returning to her normal life, she'd been shocked to realize that it wasn't what she was hoping for. Somehow, at some point in the last week, she'd moved past shock and apprehension into acceptance. Maybe even a little more than mere acceptance.
The realization had allowed her to smile and thank Dr. Saunders when she'd entered the room with the announcement, "The test came back positive. Congratulations, Kate."
The rest of the appointment had gone well enough but it had brought home to Kate just how little she knew about this brave new world she appeared to have entered. But she had a fistful of pamphlets in her purse and was starting to get a sense of what she needed to do.
She lifted her head and pulled out her phone. She had promised to call Castle and she had better make the call in the privacy of her car rather than in the goldfish bowl that was the bullpen.
She pulled up Castle's number on her phone, belatedly noting that she had never deleted him from her contacts. She wasn't sure why, since she had never planned to see him again when they'd parted two months ago, and yet somehow, she hadn't deleted him.
He answered almost immediately and stupidly, she felt a little frisson of reaction zip through her at the sound of his voice. (Shit. Stupid, stupid, Kate!) "Beckett, hi." There was a thread of pleasure in his tone and that did something to her too, that he sounded happy to hear from her.
"Hi, Castle. I just saw my doctor and she confirmed it. I am pregnant. Um, sorry?" She couldn't manage to sound really apologetic but felt a little twist of something almost like guilt at the very word, the thought of apologizing for the new life growing inside her. So tiny right now, just about the size of a kidney bean, according to one of the posters on the wall of the exam room—such a strange comparison.
"Don't ever apologize for that," he blurted out so quickly it was obviously sincere.
"I won't," she assured. "I didn't mean it, anyway." Surprisingly, under the circumstances, and yet it was true. She might—did—feel a lingering twinge of regret over how all this had happened but the new life inside her was separate from that and she found she could not regret it.
"No, but still, you have nothing to apologize for. How did the appointment go? Is everything okay?"
"Yes, she said everything is fine but she did have some questions about, well, you that I couldn't answer. I was wondering if we could meet to talk some more?"
"Of course," he agreed immediately. "I know you don't usually have time for a real lunch so dinner?"
"Sure. Dinner is fine. How about tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow works for me. I guess it can't be at the loft because Alexis and my mother would be around but I know a good Italian place, if that sounds okay."
"That's fine," she agreed. They settled on a time and he said he would text her the address and then she used the (truthful) excuse of needing to go into work to end the call, reminding herself that this dinner with Castle was not a date. She'd already made enough of a mistake to get herself into this whole thing; she wasn't going to compound it by imagining anything more could or would come of their new… relationship—friendship—whatever.
She grimaced and started her car, pushing any thoughts of Castle out of her mind. She had to go into the precinct, had work to focus on.
A body dropped the next morning and for a moment, Kate debated texting Castle to tell him she couldn't make their dinner because of it but after a moment, she decided against it. It was too soon to make that call, especially since the first day immediately after a body dropped often ended up being busy but not necessarily a long one, because of the time it took to find out more about the victim.
As she'd expected, so it proved and Kate was able to leave the precinct shortly after her shift ended, garnering some glances of surprise since she didn't usually leave so promptly when they had an active case. Knowing Manhattan traffic, she would probably end up being a little late for dinner but not by much.
It was only as she was on her way that it belatedly occurred to her to wonder what kind of restaurant Castle had picked. She didn't recognize the name but that didn't mean much since she was hardly up on New York's fine dining scene. Oh lord, what if Castle had suggested some swanky restaurant, the sort of place like Le Cirque that he must be used to frequenting but that she didn't go to? She was dressed in her work clothes and aside from that, it occurred to her that the fancy restaurants were often the sorts of places people went to see and be seen, the kinds of restaurants where people might end up being spotted and mentioned on Page Six. She tensed at the thought. The last thing she needed was to be spotted dining out with Richard Castle in public, leading to the inevitable speculation over the nature of their association. Especially since no one even knew she and Castle were in contact again.
She relaxed slightly as she found a parking spot about a block away from the address Castle had given her. Just at first glance, she didn't spot any splashy sign indicating some posh restaurant and when she made it further down the block, she relaxed further as she spotted the sign for the restaurant, Mirabelli's. It was a simple sign and Mirabelli's appeared to be one of the small, family-owned casual restaurants that were a slowly dying breed in the city.
She spotted Castle immediately when she walked in because he wasn't seated but was standing by a table towards the back, talking to a middle-aged man wearing—Kate blinked—a chef's apron. Castle knew the chef?
"Hi, Castle. Sorry I'm late."
Castle turned to her immediately, his expression warming even more than it already was, and she felt another jolt of physical attraction at the sight of him. Again. (Crap. When would she stop reacting like this to him?) "Beckett, there you are. Don't worry about it. I figured you got held up at work."
"I did. A new case." She lifted one shoulder into a half-shrug. "You know how it is." The words were meaningless but it abruptly occurred to her that he did, in fact, know how it was. He had worked with her for long enough to know.
"I do know." He nodded before gesturing to the man he'd been talking to. "Beckett, this is an old friend of mine, Gianni. He owns the restaurant. Gianni, this is my friend, Detective Kate Beckett."
Kate held out her hand but then was surprised as Gianni grasped her hand and tugged her in to buss her on each cheek in European fashion. "Any friend of Ricky's is welcome here. Lovely to meet you, Detective Kate."
Kate smiled, charmed almost in spite of herself at the warmth of the welcome. "It's nice to meet you too. Your restaurant is delightful." She meant the words. Mirabelli's was a cozy place, black and white pictures of Rome and what she guessed was the Isle of Capri on the walls, every table covered in cheerful red-and-white checked tablecloths.
"Thank you, Detective Kate." He directed his smile back to Castle. "I like this one, Ricky."
Castle laughed easily. "I'm not sure I've ever met anyone you don't like, Gianni."
Gianni flapped a hand. "Restaurant owners cannot be unfriendly but it doesn't mean I like everyone. Now, Ricky, how is little Alexis?"
Castle readily answered the question, his expression and his tone warming as they always did at the mention of Alexis, and it became apparent from Gianni's occasional comments that he had clearly known Alexis since she was quite young. Kate was content to stay quiet and listen, taking in this new side of Castle, this down-to-earth side of him who would befriend the owners of such a small, family restaurant. There wasn't a trace of the wealthy celebrity about him now.
Castle and Gianni's conversation was interrupted when a short, plump, middle-aged woman bustled out of the double doors from the kitchen, carrying a basket full of breadsticks.
Castle introduced the woman as Maria, Gianni's wife, and this time, Kate was not surprised when Maria too greeted her as warmly as if she too was an old friend, pulling her into a quick embrace.
Afterward, Maria nudged Gianni in the arm. "Oh, look at you, still talking and keeping Ricky and Detective Kate standing." She made a shoo-ing gesture. "Sit, sit. You must eat the breadsticks while they are warm and let us know what else you would like to eat."
Kate and Castle obediently sat on either side of the table while Gianni and Maria bustled back into the kitchen, promising to bring their orders as soon as possible.
"Sorry about ignoring you like that," Castle began.
"It's fine. How long have you known Gianni and Maria?"
"Oh, years. Alexis and I used to come here a lot when she was younger." He paused, made a rueful face. "Now that Alexis is busier, we don't come here as often but it's still one of our favorite restaurants. Gianni and Maria are great and their son Peter is a good kid and quite a chef in his own right."
By some unspoken agreement, they both refrained from mentioning the actual subject they needed to talk about until after their main meals arrived, no need to advertise what really lay between them with such old friends of Castle's. So instead, as they ate breadsticks and salad, Castle told her a little about Gianni and Maria's son, Peter, apparently working as a sous chef in a Michelin-starred restaurant downtown to get some more experience before he would no doubt return to help his parents out at Mirabelli's, and then more about how Alexis was doing. And she realized that one unexpected side effect of Gianni and Maria's presence, the warmth of their greeting and ensuing conversation with Castle, was that some of the lingering awkwardness between them was gone. Kate found herself more at ease in Castle's company than she had been in months—since before everything had gone wrong—and from Castle's expressions, his posture, he felt the same.
But once Gianni had returned with their meals and then left again, the awkwardness returned.
Kate took a desultory few bites of her pasta while Castle did the same for his lasagna, and in between bites, he kept darting surreptitious glances at her.
She sensed them before she saw them and then her eyes caught and snared his mid-glance. She felt a blush creep into her cheeks—absurdly—and tried to fight it, arching her eyebrows at him inquiringly.
His eyes flared wide as he looked abashed, for a fleeting moment resembling a little boy who'd been caught in some mischief. Adorably so—wait, what? No, oh no, she had not just thought of Castle as being adorable. She could not think of him like that.
Her errand mind conjured up an image of a baby boy looking like a miniature Castle except instead of blue eyes, his eyes were her own greenish-hazel. Her breath froze in her lungs, her heart seeming to spasm. Oh god, she really was having a baby with Castle, she reeled all over again.
"I—uh—your hair—it's different, longer," he blurted out as if this was the first time he'd seen her in two months, in an obvious bid to say something. "I like it."
The blush she'd been fighting triumphed as she felt her cheeks flush with heat at his stumbling words. "I thought I'd grow it out. I just forgot that meant having to go through this phase of it being an awkward length." What was she doing, spouting such inanity? Were they actually going to talk about her hair of all things?
"It looks fine, not awkward," he answered her, without so much as a flicker of an eyelash to indicate he noticed anything silly about her words.
"My mirror doesn't agree with you," she tried for a joke.
"I'd like to think I might be a better judge than your mirror," he quipped.
Because he was such a ladies' man?, the words darted across her mind before she could help it and she thought he guessed it somehow because his lips twisted into a wry grimace. "Not that I'm an expert on hairstyles," he hurriedly added. "Just ask Alexis. She'll tell you I could barely manage a passable braid after years of trying."
The mention of Alexis, the reminder that he was a dad already—and would be becoming a dad twice over in a matter of months—brought a halt to their stumbling attempt at chatting, silence falling again, thrumming between them.
A silence which he abruptly broke, his fork still poised in his lasagna. "So the doctor's appointment went well, you said?"
Oddly, or perhaps not, she felt a little of her nerves subside now that the elephant in the room had been so squarely addressed. "Yes, my doctor said everything should be fine, no reason for concern."
He nodded. "That's good. What did your doctor want to know about me?"
She blinked. Clearly, he'd decided to go for the direct approach. She supposed it made sense. For a moment, she hesitated but they really needed to get past any squeamishness over privacy quickly, under the circumstances. "She wanted to know about your family medical history, if there are any conditions you know of, anything that raises a red flag." She tried not to shift or otherwise betray any discomfiture because it was a valid question. Her doctor had briefly mentioned some of the hereditary conditions she was concerned about and Kate had felt a sudden spike of fear for the baby, this new life that was just starting to feel real to her, becoming its own almost tangible presence in her mind. But even as she asked, she abruptly remembered that Castle only knew about one side of his family—another level of awkwardness. She inwardly grimaced.
"Oh, right, I should have remembered that from when Meredith was expecting Alexis. Family medical history," he repeated. "Well, there's insanity, on my mother's side," he suggested half-seriously.
She choked on a bubble of laughter. "Castle!"
He widened his eyes at her in a look of mock innocence. "What? You've met my mother. I also think her clothing choices suggest she's severely color-blind but, alas, I've learned that's simply my mother's fortunately unique sense of style."
She tried but couldn't suppress another laugh. "Remind me to tell Martha you said that," she returned, trying—and failing—to sound scolding.
He smirked. "Go ahead. I doubt she'd be surprised."
From what she remembered of Castle's interactions with Martha, he was probably right. "Be serious."
He lifted his shoulders into a half-shrug. "Just trying to lighten the mood. Bad habit of mine."
"I remember," she said dryly. An irritating habit, yes, but it occurred to her that it had worked to dispel some of her burgeoning tension.
He sobered. "But seriously, as far as I know, there's nothing."
As far as he knew—but the phrase only reminded her, again, that Castle only knew of one side of his family history. "Does it bother you, not knowing—?" she found herself blurting out and then stopped abruptly before she could finish the phrase, not knowing who his father was. Shit, she hadn't meant to ask that. They might have blown past a lot of the conventional rules about polite conversation but even so, she shouldn't have asked. "Never mind. Ignore me," she hastily added.
He blinked, an expression she couldn't decipher flitting across his face, and for a moment, she thought he was going to take her at her word and not answer. But then he surprised her. "For the most part, no, it doesn't bother me," he answered slowly. More slowly and more uncertainly than she'd ever heard him sound before.
"We don't have to talk about this," she offered again.
"Under the circumstances, you have a right to be curious. I worried about it too, before Alexis came along, genetics, medical history as you said. But then luckily, Alexis turned out to be so perfect."
"She is," Kate agreed with a faint smile. Alexis was certainly an encouraging precedent, to say the least. Kate could only hope the baby growing inside her would turn out to be as sensible and well-behaved as Alexis was by all accounts—although from what she remembered of her own teenage years, she rather doubted it was likely.
He pasted on a smile. "And since Alexis turned out perfectly healthy, I figured there was nothing to worry about."
And clearly, that was as much as he was willing to talk about his father, or lack thereof, now. It had been too personal a question.
"Understandable." She gave him a rueful grimace. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
He shrugged. "No apology necessary. I did worse when I pried into your past."
She didn't know how to respond to that, was surprised he would bring it up.
It was his turn to make a small face. "So your doctor said everything else was fine?"
"Yes, and she gave me a bunch of advice on eating healthy, getting enough rest, you can imagine. But it's nothing I can't handle," she hurriedly added.
"Even the part about avoiding caffeine?" He raised his eyebrows at her. "How are you managing without your regular coffee fix?"
She grimaced. "I'm not loving it, to say the least, but I'll manage." It didn't help that her newfound sensitivity to the smell of coffee didn't appear to have been a one-time thing either. She'd needed to limit any visits to the break room for that reason. She supposed the only lucky thing, such as it was, was that she had already been limiting her visits to the break room since she'd stopped using Castle's espresso machine months ago so the boys wouldn't immediately pick up on anything unusual. She decided against mentioning it; his gift of the espresso machine and her reasons for avoiding it didn't make for easy conversation.
"And how have you been feeling otherwise? No morning sickness?"
"I'm a little tired. And the other day, I was passing by a hot dog stand and the smell got to me. Nothing actually happened," she hurriedly added, meaning she hadn't actually thrown up, but her stomach had rolled over and she'd hurried past until she could no longer smell it and after a few minutes, her nausea had mostly subsided. God, she could not believe she was doing this, even remotely alluding to something like nausea with Castle of all people but she supposed it was just one more thing she would need to get used to, the way this situation had thrown her and Castle into a strange, unprecedented intimacy—she flushed at the word. No, not intimacy, more, um, familiarity or something.
"Okay, that's good. It might get worse. It did for Meredith; I think she spent most of the first six months bent over the toilet."
"Castle!" She did not need to know that, did not want him acting like he had more knowledge of pregnancy than she did (even if it might be true at the moment), and she certainly did not want him to spend the next seven months comparing her experience with that of his ex-wife's.
"Too much? Yeah, that was too much. No more Meredith talk, I promise."
She nodded and returned her attention to her dinner, essaying a few more bites while he did the same, a momentary silence settling over them. She tried to tell herself it was a companionable silence but couldn't convince herself of that lie. The very air between them seemed to hum with all that lay between them, his questions about her health (she might have answered because he did have the right to ask but it hardly felt natural), and all that remained unspoken.
She could tell he felt it too from the way he was taking excessively precise bites of his lasagna, eating with so much attention to neatness he could have been dining with Queen Victoria.
Finally, after a moment, in a bid to try to ease the tension, she began with forced casualness, "Captain Montgomery told me about the interview and the photo shoot."
Captain Montgomery had practically sidled up to her desk the other day and informed her with studied nonchalance that he had agreed to allow the interview and photo shoot involving Castle. He had asked if she was amenable to the idea but it had been obvious her answer was a foregone conclusion since he'd begun by noting that both the Mayor's office and One PP approved of the idea. Kate had agreed with just enough carefully-calculated reluctance (anything less would rouse Montgomery's suspicions) but it had occurred to her to be glad Castle had already asked her about it. Because if he hadn't, the "request" from the Captain would have put her at risk of insubordination.
He looked up at her, stilling. "Oh, right. And you're still okay with it?"
She gave him a wry little smile. "It's hard to say no to a 'request' from the Mayor and One PP."
He shot her a half-rueful, half-apologetic look. "Fair point. Well, thanks. I appreciate it."
Something in his tone set off a little flutter in her chest that she hastily tamped down on, lifting her shoulders in a small shrug. "It's part of my job, orders from above and all that," she demurred.
"I guess I'll be seeing you on Sunday evening then."
The photo shoot and interview had been scheduled for the evening after the weekend daytime shift was over, for minimal disruption to the usual routine and to ensure the smallest number of gawkers. The precinct might never be closed but even so, the precinct was at its quietest on Sunday evenings.
She wished he wouldn't look and sound so… pleased at the thought of seeing her again. It would, paradoxically, make things easier, simpler, if they kept things business-like, or something, between them, just enough to reach an arrangement for how to go forward. There was too much at stake here to risk confusing the issue with anything more. She couldn't allow the strange, enforced… closeness of the situation, their mutual interest in the life growing inside her, to build some ephemeral fantasy of a mother, a father, and their kid, complete with the proverbial house and white picket fence.
"I guess so," she agreed with deliberate indifference.
She saw a shadow flicker across his eyes and felt a pang but sternly told herself it was for his good too.
But then he blinked and the look was gone. "So tell me about your latest case," he asked in the tone of someone asking about the weather.
Surprise had a small laugh escaping her. Talking about a murder was small talk now? Although, considering what they each did for a living, perhaps it was. "The victim's a young woman, found stabbed in a parking garage. It looks like a robbery gone wrong, her jewelry and her purse were both taken."
"How'd you ID her? Or is she still a Jane Doe?"
"The super of her apartment building ID'd her as Nina Desmond."
He frowned slightly. "Her apartment building? How'd you know where she lived without her purse or ID?"
"Because of where she was found. It was the parking garage attached to her building."
"Hm. But you said it looked like a robbery."
"It was a robbery; her jewelry and purse were stolen, I told you."
He waved a hand. "I know. I'm just thinking, the parking garage of her own building seems like too specific and personal a place for it to have been a simple anonymous robbery. Most muggings like that happen in public places, out on the street or a public square."
She felt a flicker of excitement, a familiar tug of something like attraction that had nothing to do with the physical and everything to do with this weird sense of connection, of being on the same page. Something about the case had been niggling at her and he'd just pinpointed what it was. "There is public access to the garage. It's not one of those with high-level security or anything," she pointed out, more to play devil's advocate than because she disagreed.
"Maybe but still, it's a weirdly specific place for a robbery. What are the chances some random mugger decided to use the parking garage of just that building as his hunting ground? And if there's no real security, how'd he guess anyone there would necessarily have enough to make them a tempting target?"
"The victim's not badly off but she's not super-rich either," she went on, thinking aloud now. "We talked to her sister. The family seems comfortable but not rolling in money by any means."
"Hmm. Not to be crass but in some parts of Manhattan, it would be easy to find richer targets, more bang for your buck in a manner of speaking."
"If I hear about a rash of muggings targeting the wealthy, I'll be sure to suspect you," she retorted dryly.
"Haha. As a mystery writer, I'm highly paid to think like a bad guy, remember?"
She had to laugh. "Nice job description."
A smirk tugged on his lips. "I'm thinking of having business cards made." He sobered. "What else do we know about the victim?"
He'd said 'we,' just as if they were working together again. And she realized belatedly that talking about a case like this had relaxed her. And reminded her, somewhat unwillingly, that she'd liked this part of working with him, the back-and-forth theorizing. "She works for an insurance company, mostly property insurance. We talked to her co-workers but no one could think of any work-related issues she'd been having. But," she paused, "her sister did mention that she thought the victim might be seeing someone."
"Ooh, a secret lover, that always has potential!" Castle sounded ridiculously excited. "And nice use of the dramatic pause to build the tension."
"Thank you. I try," she returned dryly. Such a storyteller to pay a compliment like that.
"What else do we know about the secret boyfriend?"
"We don't even know for sure the secret boyfriend exists," she pointed out repressively. Mostly to be contrary since the victim's sister had been relatively sure the victim was seeing someone. "But assuming he exists, the sister has no idea who he might be and none of her co-workers seemed to know anything about it."
"Phone records. If the victim was in a relationship, there'll be some evidence of it in her phone records," he pronounced.
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, Castle, we know. This might come as a shock to you but we are capable of solving cases without your help. We're just waiting to get the phone records and financials."
"There was nothing in her apartment hinting at a boyfriend?"
"Nothing specific." The victim had been on birth control and they'd found condoms in her night stand but under the circumstances, she couldn't feel comfortable mentioning either of those items.
"Maybe she's a spy, leading a double life!"
Definitely still Castle. She sternly bit back a smile and made a derisive noise instead. "I think your secret boyfriend theory is more likely."
He pasted on a pout. "But being killed by a significant other is so prosaic. It would be so much more exciting if the victim were a spy."
"Save the excitement for your books. In the real world, the boring answer is usually the right one."
He affected a sigh. "Detective Spoilsport."
"That's me," she quipped, smirking at him.
He laughed and for a moment, their eyes met and held as they exchanged smiles and it occurred to her that she had missed this, missed this kind of banter and yes, the theorizing too. She'd missed working with him. Not that it mattered because he was done with the Nikki Heat book so he didn't need to do any more research and it wasn't like she really wanted him to return to the precinct. She didn't; she and the boys were managing just fine, she told herself, and tried to believe it.
But then he blinked and sat back in his chair while she took an overly-large gulp of water and the moment, whatever it had been, was over.
And then Gianni returned to ask how their meals had been and if they wanted dessert, which they both refused, and their conversation became more general as he asked after the boys and the Captain and the other uniforms he'd gotten to know at the precinct. Castle insisted on paying for dinner and she reluctantly gave in after a brief argument, partly because she was tired and partly because Castle explained he always left a generous tip whenever he dined here.
It all seemed very normal somehow—oddly so, since it wasn't as if she and Castle had been used to dining out at restaurants before. And it wasn't as if she and Castle would be eating together often. Once the Cosmo interview and photo shoot were over, she and Castle would probably stay in touch via phone but there shouldn't be much need for them to see each other in person all that often going forward. And that was just fine with her. Really.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: Thank you as always to all readers and reviewers.
