Author's Note: I am so sorry for not posting last week as usual but RL got in the way and didn't allow for it. But now, without further ado, the next chapter.
Then Came Love
Chapter 45
Castle darted a surreptitious glance at Beckett over the sheet of the victim's phone records he was reviewing, the fourth such glance in the last half hour. Concern was niggling at him on more than one level.
More immediately, there was a small crinkle between her brows, the one that generally indicated she was frustrated with a case or that she had a headache and today, Castle suspected both were true. He'd already made her a cup of tea and he rather wished she were able to drink coffee if only because, aside from Beckett's usual love of coffee, coffee provided more scope for him to try to brighten her day with drawing a heart in the foam or something. The same effect simply couldn't be achieved with tea (he'd tried.)
He knew she was frustrated about the Beatrice Schaeffer case; they all were because they hadn't really learned anything more yesterday, the first full day of the investigation. They had gone to the doctor's office where she worked but neither the doctor nor the other nurses had appeared to know anything, expressing the usual range of emotions of shock and grief, but nothing suspicious. They'd received confirmation that the jewelry he'd found at her apartment had mostly been real and certainly indicated she'd had an additional income of some sort beyond her regular salary but they were no closer to learning what that source of income might have been. They'd confirmed it wasn't family money and she hadn't won the lottery (it was a sign of how frustrated Beckett and the boys were becoming that they even looked into his admittedly-improbable suggestion).
The boys had gone to question the vic's ex-husband who lived in Connecticut to try to find out more about the victim's background, anything that might help. In the meantime, he and Beckett had spent the morning going over the victim's financials and phone records that had finally arrived. (Predictably, Murphy's law being what it was, the records always seemed to take longer on the cases where they didn't have other obvious leads to pursue.) Not that all this had led to anything useful, unfortunately, which was putting a damper on even his usual pleasure in working with Beckett, not helped by how much he knew it had to be aggravating Beckett.
Beyond the case though, he was a little concerned because Beckett had seemed… off somehow even aside from the case. She had come over to the loft again for dinner yesterday, just as she had the day before (much to his delight) and he'd thought she'd seemed a little distracted, quieter than usual. It was possible it was just instinct or an odd sixth sense because he didn't think he could pinpoint any change in her behavior specifically and his mother had again been in full Hurricane Martha mode so there hadn't been much opportunity for anyone else to participate. (He was torn between being happy that his mother's spirits were so high due to her reconciliation with Chet and being a little disturbed to know that his mother's, ahem, love life was making her so happy that she might as well have been her own one-woman show.) And of course, Beckett wasn't a chatterbox at the best of times.
But Castle had spent enough time observing Beckett (creepy staring, he heard her voice comment in his head) that he thought he qualified for an advanced degree in the Art of Reading Kate Beckett. And the last couple days, she hadn't seemed entirely like herself.
He thought, assumed rather, that it was about the baby. Was she worrying again over how good a mother she would be or something like that? But if she was, why wouldn't she say so to him when she'd allowed him to reassure her about that before? (Of course, this was still Beckett, who didn't easily show vulnerability.)
More prosaically, he thought it might just be Beckett dealing with some of the other physical discomforts as her pregnancy advanced, things like some mild cramps or bloating or a headache or things like that. Meredith might have felt free to inform him of all such discomforts but he doubted his reticent and independent Beckett would do that. As it was, he was uncomfortably aware that Beckett most likely was only mentioning a fraction of the physical symptoms she felt.
At least, he comforted himself, he didn't think whatever was bothering Beckett had anything to do with him or with their relationship, as such. Because whatever else, she kissed him and touched him with as much feeling as ever. Some women might be deceitful about such things, utterly divorcing passion from emotion (Meredith had been one of them) but he didn't think Beckett would do that. Besides, his own ego aside, it wasn't just her responsiveness to him, it was in her eyes, in her smile, when she looked at him.
So no, he didn't really think he needed to worry that Beckett might be getting tired of him or something (no matter what the voice of his insecurities might try to whisper). But he couldn't help but feel the little niggle of concern–not entirely unmixed with the familiar frustration at how close-lipped Beckett could be, still was. He might understand why Beckett was so reticent and independent–and he loved her for her strength–but for all that, in one of life's ironies, the very strength and independence that he loved so much were also in a way what he found frustrating about her. He wanted to be there for her, wanted to be the one to comfort her when she was vulnerable, wanted to be the one she let down her guard with and talked to about whatever might be on her mind.
She was slowly opening up more, he knew that, mostly about the baby, her fears over the baby, her worries over what kind of mother she would be–even her initial doubts about their relationship. He was just impatient, he supposed ruefully, and greedy. He wanted her to open up about everything, now rather than later. Just as he wanted her to move into the loft yesterday rather than at some future time.
Baby steps. He would simply need to be patient and persistent. And hopeful because Beckett did trust him so he had to hope that if he waited, gave her time and the space she needed, she would turn to him eventually.
In the meantime, they still had a case to solve.
He glanced at Beckett again but this time, he was caught out, her eyes snaring his.
"Any luck?" she asked, more rhetorically than not.
He grimaced a little. "I was thinking maybe we could switch off, see if fresh eyes will help."
"It certainly can't hurt," she conceded. "Maybe you'll make more sense out of these financials."
"I'll try."
They swapped, with him handing her the victim's phone records while he took the financials.
It was a little more than half an hour when Castle thought his eyes were in danger of glazing over from all the numbers when Beckett shifted, sitting forward in her chair. He glanced sharply over at her. "Did you find something?"
"I think so. These texts, I think I've figured them out."
He stood and moved to stand behind her chair, one hand resting on her shoulder as he bent over her to look at what she was pointing to. Oh right, these texts, he remembered, which the victim had sent fairly regularly, which only consisted of numbers, like the one Beckett was indicating, reading "304250." And there were others, "254220," "154185," and "404350."
"I was wondering about these too; at first I thought it might be a phone number but it doesn't have enough digits so I drew a blank," he admitted. "What does 304 thousand, two fifty have to do with anything?"
"I think it's a code of sorts." She moved her finger to point at the numbered messages. "They all have 4 in the middle so look, the first one could be 30-4-250 or 30 for 250. I think she was selling something and this was a price offer."
The words triggered something in his brain and he reached over, grabbing the financial statements. "You're right, look. A couple days after these messages, she deposited something around that amount, the last three digits, into her account so with some haggling, it could be the price. And she's a nurse so I think she was selling pills…"
"She was running a pill mill," Beckett finished, her words overlapping with his.
They exchanged quick half-smiles and he felt one of those flashes of energy zip through him, mingled triumph and excitement about solving a mystery, and on a more personal level, a sharp flare of attraction, an attraction that wasn't about Beckett's appearance but about her cleverness. He loved the way her mind worked, loved even more these instances when their minds worked in tandem, this sense of affinity, of a connection with another person that was stronger than anything he'd ever felt before.
He remembered the early days of his relationship with Gina, the zenith of their personal relationship (ironically or maybe just sadly), when he'd felt something of the spark that came from shared interests, from the way he and Gina had worked together. The spark that had made him think they might actually work on a personal level too–only to find it wasn't true. Whatever common ground he and Gina had in work matters hadn't extended to their personal lives, the same qualities that made her such a good editor–her directness, her drive, her cool control–somehow also made her something less than a good fit for him personally. It wasn't only that he and Gina were very different–she was disciplined, he was not; she was methodical, he was not–but that ultimately they'd valued different things, wanted different things. She cared more about money and fame than he did; she wasn't very family-focused, unlike him. And oh fine, he had to admit that he wasn't blameless either; something about Gina had tended to bring out his contrariness, his stubborn streak.
Being with Beckett was different. In so many ways but not the least was the strength of the connection he felt with her in moments like this, when they worked together as a seamless team. The spark he'd felt at the height of his relationship with Gina was like the light of a match, pale and easily extinguished with a puff of air, whereas this, what he felt with Beckett, was like the light of the sun.
He gave in to unthinking impulse and abruptly bent and kissed her, a fleeting touch of his lips to hers. She stiffened slightly in surprise, although she didn't jerk away, and he managed a faint, not-quite-apologetic quirk of his lips. "Sorry, couldn't resist. I always knew we were brilliant together."
"Little early to be so excited. You realize the pill mill is just a theory with no real evidence so it might be nothing," she pointed out quellingly. But he caught the way her teeth caught her lower lip, knew by now that it indicated she was trying to keep a smile from escaping. She wasn't annoyed at him for the kiss–even if it had broken one of the unwritten rules of their relationship, to keep things professional in the precinct. (Well, they were alone in the conference room, the boys were out, as was the Captain.) The little knot of concern inside his chest dissolved. Whatever was bothering Beckett, it wasn't about their relationship, couldn't be. Right?
"Oh, ye of little faith. Don't you think we'll be able to find evidence now that we have some idea of what to look for?"
"Still, no need to tempt fate, is there?"
"Why, Detective, that almost sounded superstitious. I must be rubbing off on you."
"I'm being realistic," she corrected dryly but there was the faintest twitch at the corner of her lips and he grinned, feeling a giddy thrill. He did love the push-and-pull of their banter. And he thought again that they were fine, had to be fine. It was nothing to worry about and hopefully, it had mostly been Beckett's frustration with the case that had been the issue to begin with and they had made a breakthrough in the case.
But he sobered appropriately as the boys returned shortly thereafter and they all left the precinct to go to the doctor's office to dig deeper into the files to see if they could find confirmation that the vic had been using her access to patient prescriptions to run a pill mill and pocketing the profits.
Returning to the doctor's office and a couple hours spent reviewing patient records pertaining to prescriptions got them confirmation that the victim had been running a pill mill, finding notations in multiple patient records of seemingly "lost" prescription scripts that had needed to be refilled and some deliveries of prescriptions that were mysteriously found to be incomplete and required additional orders to be filled.
Espo and Ryan started one of their little bickering arguments over whether the doctor, Eli Marconi, was either an unwitting dupe or a knowing accomplice, an argument which only ended when Beckett snapped at them that the easy way to settle it would be to bring Dr. Marconi in for questioning, which they would need to do anyway.
And then as it happened, questioning Dr. Marconi, in the precinct for this official interview this time, also got them the killer because Dr. Marconi was no criminal mastermind and it didn't take long for him to give way when faced with Beckett's cool focus, drilling him about the pills he and the vic had been selling, and he burst out with wild defensiveness that he hadn't known anything at all about the pill mill scheme the victim had been running, had only found out about it days ago when he'd had occasion to review patient files and then noticed something amiss, putting the pieces together. He had confronted the vic about it and in anger, had shoved her, resulting in the victim falling down the flight of stairs onto the basement-level stoop, her head cracking against the pavement, killing her. "It would have ruined me, ruined my practice," was his justification.
Castle glanced at Beckett and saw that she was carefully concealing her own disgust at the killer. Fitting irony that Dr. Marconi would likely have been able to get away with a slap on the wrist over the pill mill since he would have been able to argue total ignorance of the victim's schemes but now, he would be going to jail for murder–a crime for which he could not assert the defense of ignorance. And his medical career was definitely over.
The boys took over processing Dr. Marconi's arrest while Castle and Beckett returned to her desk for her to get started on the paperwork to close the case. Beckett was, as usual after they closed one of these senseless murders (not that most murders were sensible but that was beside the point), a little quiet and Castle by now knew her well enough not to try to tease her out of it. He was rewarded for his forbearance when she turned to him at the end of her shift and suggested he come over to her place for dinner, an offer which immediately had his spirits rebounding. He countered by suggesting they drop off at a grocery store on the way to her place to pick up supplies to cook dinner rather than order in or trust to the luck of whatever was stocked in her kitchen.
She agreed with a faint twitch of her lips, which was how Castle found himself entering the grocery store with Beckett half an hour later. He easily commandeered a cart and made a dramatic flourishing gesture to indicate Beckett could lead the way, which she did with a slight quirk of her lips.
It hadn't occurred to him until then but he realized that this might be his first time going grocery shopping with a significant other. Meredith had not been one for running errands as quotidian as grocery shopping and she wasn't given to cooking anyway. Gina hadn't exactly been the domestic type either and was a busy professional, much more inclined to get groceries delivered rather than actually going to a store and taking care of it herself. It was an odd thing to realize but he thought this, going grocery shopping with a significant other–with Beckett, specifically–was something he'd almost dreamed of–not the task itself but the sheer domesticity of it. More than that, it was the symbolism of it, the fact that he and Beckett didn't need to go out to fancy dinners at expensive restaurants or anything; fancy, expensive dinners were all well and good (if only because he was definitely a fan of seeing Beckett in a dress, all beautiful and sexy) but it wasn't real life. This–their relationship–was real and solid and everything he'd ever wanted.
"Don't even think about wandering off in search of whatever random thing your brain comes up with. We'll do this in order, up and down every aisle," Beckett tossed him a half-teasing, half-warning look.
He huffed in mock offense. "Are you implying that I'm inclined to be impulsive and disorganized?"
"No," she deadpanned, a smirk tugging on her lips. "I'm stating it outright."
He had to laugh, grinning at her. "Okay, so you might have a point but when it comes to grocery shopping, I'll have you know I can be very methodical. Alexis trained me early on." He glanced around and then leaned towards her with an air of someone about to impart a state secret. "She can be such a dictator sometimes."
"Clearly you've suffered terribly," she returned dryly.
"She doesn't even allow me to race shopping carts," he offered in a tone of someone being denied a fundamental right.
He was rewarded for this piece of silliness as she laughed outright. "Any more tales of woe or can we get on with it?"
"Nope, let's go shopping," he declared brightly.
Maybe it was a little weird but he was almost bubbling over with excitement as he and Beckett started going through the aisles, knowing that to anyone watching, they would look like a married couple shopping for dinner. Married… visions of a happy future of being just that, grocery shopping for their shared home, their family, sometimes with the Sprout accompanying them in the baby seat of the cart or maybe waiting at home for them watched by Alexis or his mother, danced through his mind. Christmas music was, as usual in the month of December, playing on the sound system throughout the store and he happily hummed along, unfazed by the way Beckett vetoed some of his more extravagant or silly suggestions. ("Castle, we don't need a gallon of ice cream." "No marshmallows either.")
He was sharing stories of a particular Christmas Eve when his mother had invited the cast members in her current play who didn't have local family to come over and Christmas Eve dinner with them and they, in typically expansive theatrical fashion, had turned the more specific invitation into a general one and asked more and more of their other theater friends. So what had originally been supposed to be a cozy dinner for about a dozen people had turned into a full blown holiday party with more than thirty guests instead. He still remembered the 8-year-old Alexis giggling as she danced to "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" with a couple of his mother's fellow cast-mates.
Later, it occurred to him that he got a little carried away in recounting the story as he sometimes did and didn't notice that Beckett was not responsive to the story-but that was hindsight. At the moment, he was laughing over the story because he did enjoy parties and Christmas parties especially so.
They reached the meat section which reminded him, "Say, Beckett, I wanted to mention that we normally have ham for Christmas Eve dinner. Do you have any traditional dishes you wanted to request for Christmas? I called your dad to ask him and he didn't–"
Beckett stopped short. "You what?"
He broke off. There was a distinct edge in her tone, setting off distant alarm bells in his mind, but he couldn't imagine what he'd said. "I called your dad to invite him over for Christmas Eve dinner. We always have a nice family dinner on Christmas Eve and I wanted to ask if your dad had any requests for food."
"You talked to my dad about Christmas?"
"Yes, why? I just thought it'd be nicer to invite your dad personally rather than having you ask him second-hand. It's Christmas, after all."
"And you didn't think you should check with me first? He's my dad!"
Some irritation and defensiveness was starting to lick at him. What had he done? He tried to keep his tone calm, reasonable. "I know that but your dad gave me his number at Thanksgiving. You were there, you know that. I didn't think I needed to get your permission before calling him."
"No, you just assumed it would be okay, just as you assumed that my dad and I would be okay with coming over for Christmas, just as you assumed that we couldn't possibly have any Christmas plans already and would be totally free to drop them and spend the day with you," she bit off.
He gaped, feeling only marginally less shocked than he would have been if flying reindeer had suddenly appeared in the store. "I–"
"I can't talk about this. I need some air," she bit out.
"But–Beckett!"
She didn't respond and she had already vanished from sight before he managed to unstick his stupid feet from the floor where they seemed to have taken root in sheer shock at the abruptness of this argument–it had been an argument, hadn't it? He grimaced, hesitating, before giving up and just leaving the half-full cart in the corner of the aisle as he took off after Beckett, hastily dodging the usual evening rush of other shoppers.
Thanks to the busy-ness of the store and, admittedly, his delayed reaction, it was at least a couple minutes before he finally burst out of the store, his gaze flying around seeking the familiar dark head. But of course, on a Manhattan sidewalk, especially around rush hour and during the holiday season, seeking one particular person in the sea of people really was like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. He walked hastily in a couple block circle around the store but didn't see her anywhere.
He tried calling her but she didn't answer–unsurprisingly–and he gave up, leaving her a voicemail and then sending her a text message for good measure. He started walking towards her apartment but then after a couple blocks, changed his mind and hailed a cab to take him back home instead. He wasn't sure where Beckett had gone–trust her to still be able to move so fast and disappear so effectively, even while almost six months pregnant–but he didn't relish the idea of possibly forcing a confrontation which she might not want to have. Didn't relish the idea of waiting out in the hallway outside her apartment for her until whenever she decided to return to her place either.
Which reminded him with another abrupt pang that he didn't have the spare key to her place.
It wasn't as if he hadn't been aware of that before–and to be fair, he hadn't yet given her a spare key to the loft either; he meant to but the last couple days with the case had been busy and he hadn't gotten around to it yet–but now, in the aftermath of their argument, it struck him as another reason to wonder, to fear, that somehow, something about his relationship with Beckett had gone wrong. Almost as if she was, oh, just keeping time with him until something better came along–which wasn't true. It wasn't. He didn't believe it. He really didn't. She wouldn't do that to him, not after everything they'd been through, not under the circumstances. They were having a baby together! And Beckett was the one who'd been so hesitant about starting a romantic relationship in the first place because of the baby, out of concerns of what a possible future break-up might do to the baby.
It was just… Beckett being Beckett, cautious Beckett, always holding some part of herself back, not letting people in. It wasn't as if he hadn't known this about her already. He had. He just wished that made it easier when something like this happened.
Because he still didn't know what had just happened, what had gone wrong and upset Beckett so much. What had he done? Beckett might be pregnant but she was still herself and up until that day, he had been complacent in thinking that Beckett, of all women, hadn't become irrational, not that he would have expected anything less of her. So if she was upset, he had to assume he had done something to provoke it. And Castle would be the first to admit that he was no saint but for the life of him, he couldn't think of what he'd done or said that had been so wrong to make Beckett snap at him the way she had.
So he had called her dad and invited her dad over for Christmas Eve dinner without talking it over with Beckett herself first but so what? What had she expected or wanted, an engraved invitation that she spend Christmas with him and his family? They were dating, they were having a baby together, and they had already spent Thanksgiving together! Christmas was just the next family holiday, it had seemed logical, the expected next step, that Beckett and Jim would, of course, join them for Christmas too. Okay, so he knew women didn't like to be taken for granted but he didn't think his assuming Beckett would join them for Christmas was that egregious a mistake.
So what was it?
He had arrived back home and for the first time, it occurred to him that maybe the decorations in the loft might be excessive. He couldn't quite believe he was thinking this since he loved Christmas, adored the holiday decorations, but at the moment, in his current mood, the insistently festive atmosphere fostered by the decorations just struck him as being too much, the contrast with his current mood too great. He scowled and stalked into his office, which was, at least, relatively free from holiday decorations except for the strand of Christmas lights strung up around the gap in the bookshelves that served as the entrance to his office from the front room.
At least Alexis and his mother were both out this evening. He really didn't want to deal with his daughter's soft sympathy or his mother's less-soft, more meddlesome brand of concern.
He pulled his phone out, checking it, as if there was even the smallest chance that he could have somehow missed Beckett trying to contact him since they'd parted. She hadn't, obviously.
He glowered at the unoffending phone, his mind again replaying every word of their little spat in an attempt to find clues–evidence, Castle, he heard her voice in his mind–of what had upset her so much.
It had started with his mentioning her dad. Hadn't it? Was it some sort of weird possessiveness or protectiveness thing with her dad? He knew, or could guess at, how protective Beckett was about her dad, considering her dad's history and past troubles but surely, surely she didn't actually think that Castle would do or say something to upset her dad? Maybe he might, unwittingly, but he couldn't imagine that an invitation to Christmas Eve dinner fell into that category. Castle might have his tactless moments but it wasn't as if he had or would, say, question Jim about his struggles with alcoholism or something. He liked Jim and was reasonably certain that Jim liked him and approved of him–thank the merciful fates for that–but Castle certainly had every intention of being on his best behavior where Jim was concerned for the foreseeable future.
Except–wait. It hadn't really started with mentioning Jim, had it? He had thought it earlier today, wondered if something was going on with Beckett because she had seemed… off somehow in the last day or so. So he'd been right, something had been off about her, as he'd feared.
And of course, he thought with a flare of familiar frustration, she couldn't have just talked to him about it, could she? That would take all the fun out of his having to guess or trying to use telepathy to read her mind, he thought sarcastically.
Instead, she left him to guess, put the pieces together himself. Since heaven forbid Kate Beckett ever made his life easy. Oh no, she wasn't like that. She was challenging, frustrating, downright infuriating sometimes–and more fool him, he found her endlessly fascinating for it. Damn it. But there it was, the heart wanted what it wanted and his heart was irrevocably set on Beckett.
He sighed, tipping his head back until his gaze snagged on the clock and he noted it had been more than an hour now since he'd seen Beckett. Some worry started to impinge on his irritation. More than an hour–was she still outside, walking around somewhere? He was learning that Beckett generally had to be active when she was upset, as if the activity of her brain made her body restless too. But he didn't think it was good for her to be on her feet for so long and in the cold.
And would she think to eat dinner? In usual times–thankfully not so much these days with her increased appetite–Beckett did have a tendency to skip meals if she got caught up in work or otherwise distracted, not because she couldn't take care of herself but rather as if she didn't deem something as minor as keeping herself fed was worth the time it would take away from her priorities. It was why he made such a point to provide her with snacks and tea during the day these days.
He considered trying to call her again but decided against it. He also knew Beckett too well to think that pushing when she was upset would lead to anything good. He didn't like it but as usual with Beckett, patience was his best option.
Patience and thought. What had he missed, what had upset her so much? If it wasn't really about his calling her dad–and he didn't think it was–then what?
Unless… it wasn't about her dad. He remembered, belatedly, the way Beckett had snapped at him in Beatrice Schaeffer's apartment a couple days ago. He had forgotten it until now because Beckett had tacitly apologized and the incident had seemed so minor but now, he wondered at it. He had asked Beckett why she didn't decorate her apartment for Christmas–something he had occasionally wondered at but hadn't thought to ask because when he was actually in Beckett's apartment, he was almost always distracted, focused more on her than on anything else–but on seeing the way Beatrice Schaeffer had decorated her apartment, he'd blurted out the question and she'd snapped at him. He had assumed that it was Beckett's usual focus when they were working–it wasn't as if Beckett was much given to personal conversation and certainly not in the middle of a case–but now, he revisited the incident.
Was that it? The mention of Christmas that had upset her?
Except she had been to the loft, had seen how much he decorated for Christmas, and he hadn't really noticed her reacting to the Christmas decorations so maybe it was more specifically Christmas the day? No, it wasn't even that, he thought–finally–it was about her mom. Had to be, really. Didn't it? Beckett getting upset was, if not always, but often (and understandably so) somehow related to her mom. Was that it? That she and her dad visited her mom's grave on Christmas or some other private family memorial for Johanna? It had to be something like that, didn't it?
He sighed again. He was almost certain he was right about that but understanding brought its own sort of hurt. Because as much as he might wish otherwise, he also knew that Beckett's grief over her mom, the memories of her mom, was the most private, most closely-held, part of Beckett's life. A part of her life into which he couldn't–didn't dare–intrude. There was only so much–very little–he could do to help Beckett when it came to her grief over her mom.
All he could really do, again, still, was wait and be there for her if–when–oh please, let it be when–she chose to turn to him.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: Thank you, as always, to all readers and reviewers.
