"You're awfully quiet for a man of many words."
Relishing the delicious coffee that seemed to do wonders to revive her tired body late this afternoon; Beckett leaned against the hospital elevator, watching the numbers trickle down to the parking garage while Castle shifted nervously.
"Just…pondering…", the writer answered cryptically and looked over, trying to disguise his worry behind a half-hearted smile that was less than convincing.
"Pondering about what? The case?"
"Something like that, yeah…", Castle began, then hesitated as the elevator doors opened to the emptying underground garage, "I was just…I was wondering why you didn't tell Ryan where you and Esposito went off to. It could have avoided several hours of tracking down your whereabouts."
The seriousness in his words made Beckett step out of the elevator, then stay in place, facing the writer confrontationally.
"We had no reason to believe that things would spiral out of control like that. I thought it would just be a regular interview and if there'd be something going wrong, we'd go and arrest him. We've done it like that so many times, I never expected for it to end like that."
"But it did. And things could have ended up a lot worse than they did."
"But they didn't."
Her flippant comment made Castle purse his lips, that lightheartedness so suddenly replaced with the sternness of a father ready to reprimand his daughter.
"You know, you give Esposito so much grief about acting like a hero cop, going through town and taking down everyone who's in his way of defending the law. But you do the exact same thing. You act like you're invincible, like you're above the laws of the universe, and worst, and most annoyingly of all, you act as if you getting hurt wouldn't make the least bit of a difference to anybody. And that's being careless. And narrow-minded. And selfish. Because your safety and wellbeing does matter to some. Especially to me."
Beckett fell completely still at his candid words, torn between feeling exactly like a reprimanded daughter and the outright flattery for Castle's shameless honesty when it came to his feelings for her.
In the end, she resorted to picking her battles wisely, doing so in the form of a quiet nod, then reached forward to squeeze his arm.
"You are right. I am sorry. If…if there is ever a situation like that again, I'll be sure to let everyone know of my whereabouts. Hopefully it will close that gap and never allow for something like this to happen again."
Although he was still struggling with the situation, Castle smiled and covered her hand with his own, patting it affectionately.
"I'll accept that."
They stared at each other for many long moments, neither party willing to voice the emotions that had erupted in the past few days, the many what-if questions that had the potential to lead to a disastrous outcome, the fear that the incredible lucky streak that had been bestowed upon a certain team of people in the 12th Precinct would suddenly come to a terrible, unceremonious end.
Eventually, it was Beckett who lowered her glance, then shook the half-empty container of coffee in her hand, feeling the warm liquid swirl around inside.
"Thank you so much for this. And for everything you did. I can't begin to thank you for-"
Surprisingly, Castle cut her off mid-sentence, putting his index finger to her lips with a wily smile.
"I'll take a passionate kiss as a proper payment.", he teased, only to watch her shake her head, grunting in feigned annoyance.
"Let's get back to the office, Castle. We have a lot of work to do."