A/N: Hey all, I'm back from the dead! A recent review reminded me that I still had a lot more in mind for this story, so I'm back to drafting. Sorry to break from the sexy times of the previous chap, but it was necessary. Hopefully not too long of a break before next time. Thanks to anyone who hasn't completely given up on this story yet!
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Waking up was, in a word, unpleasant. In fact, it was rather more like waking up to a blaring fire alarm than waking up in an orgasm-induced haze. Granted it wasn't an actual fire alarm that woke them up, it was the beeper laying on top of night stand. Specifically an 'emergencies only beeper' that each one of the detectives had should anything immediately threatening to public safety come up.
"Shit!" Kevin jolted out of a dead sleep, fully tangled in the limbs of a warm, gorgeous woman.
"What the hell is that?" Alexis managed to grumble out as Kevin panic-fell out of the bed while trying to get her legs untangled from around him.
"Emergency. Gotta get my phone," Kevin muttered, picking himself up off the ground and stumbling into the kitchen where he'd left his phone turned off last night.
Alexis groaned, dropping a pillow over her face and wishing this was just some weird nightmare. She wanted to go back to the sex-haze from a few hours ago.
"Hey Beckett, what the hell is going on?" Kevin's voice filtered into the room as he made his way back to Alexis, phone now in hand and pressed to his ear. He moved as he spoke, throwing a t-shirt to Alexis as he pulled an undershirt out of the drawer to drop it on the bed. "Shit, ok, I can be ready in 15 minutes. Have Javi pick me up. We'll meet you there."
"What's going on?" Alexis pulled the pillow off her head at the urgency in his voice, much more sympathy in her question than she'd had at her initial wake-up. Her question went unanswered through as he disappeared into the bathroom before fully hanging up the phone. Alexis pulled on the t-shirt he'd tossed at her, sitting up as she listened to the water running for what was easily the quickest shower she'd ever heard of.
After about 5 minutes Kevin reappeared, completely naked, and rambling off an answer to her question as he rifled through more drawers, pulling out socks, boxers, and jeans.
"There are some explosions going off at the east end of 23rd street. Looks intentional, lots of slander graffiti on the buildings, and now the fires are spreading. I guess there's a gas line nearby too that's in danger. If the gas line goes up, the whole block goes up. They're evacuating now."
"Shit," Alexis replied, sitting more upright in bed to watch as he pulled on clothes, hopping over to the closet while zipping up the jeans. "What do you guys have to do? Help evacuate? You can't start investigating until the fires are out, right?"
"I don't know yet," Kevin responded, leaving half his shirt unbuttoned to check an incoming message chirping from his phone. "Javi will be here in 5. We'll figure it out when we get there."
He shot off a quick response to Esposito on his way back to the bathroom. He came back in fixing the gel in his hair, though the rest of his shirt still hadn't been buttoned as he reached for his wallet, badge, and gun.
"Hey," Alexis got up out of bed now, making her way quickly to him to finish up the buttons he'd missed. "Be careful, ok?"
"Hm?" Kevin glanced up at her as he just seemed to notice her fingers were on his shirt.
"You still owe me," Alexis glanced at the clock on the bedside table. "12 hours."
"12 hours?" Kevin asked, frowning as he pulled a fluorescent police vest from the closet, throwing it hastily over one arm while she spoke.
"Yeah, come on, we're only halfway through the promised 24," Alexis had been trying for a joke to lighten the mood a little, but now she was a little more concerned. As well as he could keep up with jokes when he was tired, this situation apparently fell into a different category.
"Right," Kevin stopped at her words for a second, finally seeming to focus in on her rather than rushing to get himself ready to be out the door. He put his hands heavily on her shoulders, holding her in place and meeting her bright blue-green eyes with his own blue ones. "I owe you another 12 hours. We could even make it 13, considering the indecency of these attacks for happening during our very special, very specific One Day."
"Good," Alexis laughed, feeling her chest loosen at the soft curve of his lips. "So be careful? Will bullet proof vests do anything against explosions?"
"I promise, we'll be wearing them anyway."
"Full-on SWAT gear, if possible," Alexis countered, letting her hands reach up to grip his wrists as the reality of the situation came into focus.
"Sure thing, Javi always keeps a spare suit in the car."
"Hey, light on the sarcasm here, please?"
Kevin merely chuckled, pulling her in to wrap up in a hug as he pressed his lips to her forehead in a soft kiss. Kevin's phone blaring from on top of the dresser again pulled them quickly out of their embrace. Kevin merely glanced at the caller ID before silencing it, tucking the phone into his pocket and catching Alexis's face in his hands one more time.
"Javi's here. I have to go. But I will be back," he leaned down to meet Alexis in one more chaste kiss, though a promise for more lingered as he pulled away. "I still owe you 12 hours."
"Too right you do!" Alexis called after him, following as he practically jogged down the hall to the door.
"Lock up behind me?"
"Yeah"
"You know where the key is, stay as long as you like."
Alexis pulled him into one last kiss standing at the door, a hand at the back of his neck, parting her lips beneath his, pushing him ever-so-slightly to hit his back against the door frame.
"Thanks," she murmured, pulling back as soon as he started to dive back in. "You have to go."
"Ugh," Kevin groaned, pushed her back into the apartment, pulled the door closed between them, and then sprinted his way down the stairs to meet the police car waiting outside his building.
"What took you so long, man?" Esposito asked, pulling the car away from the curb and turning the siren on to glide through the mostly still non-existent early morning traffic.
"Nothing," Kevin grunted, slightly defensive as he leaned back in his seat to buckle in.
"Is that a hickey?"
"What? Where?" Kevin looked down to see if there even was anywhere that his collar didn't cover, but Javier was laughing. "Ass."
"So, you left a lady up there?"
"Maybe"
"One-night stand? Or one of your dates finally putting out before you leave 'em on the third?"
Kevin flashed a glare at him, but was saved from answering by the police radio in the car crackling to life with a 'Ryan! Esposito! ETA?'
"Yeah, 3 blocks out," Kevin replied into the radio.
"Stop on 21st and help fire set up a perimeter," Beckett's voice filtered through the other end of the radio.
"Copy," Kevin replied as Javi took a sharp turn to cut through an alley to pass off commuter traffic and get them closer to the billowing smoke at the end of 21st street.
"No rest for the wicked, huh," Esposito muttered, spinning the car to cut off any incoming traffic onto 21st street.
"Not in this lifetime," Kevin responded, throwing off his buckle and pulling the bullet-proof and fluorescent vests from the back seat.
"Game faces on," Javi said, taking his vests as they both got out of the car to run down to meet the fire trucks already assembled at the end of the street. "Alright, guys, we're going to need to cut off access to the next 3 blocks at least. Have your guys swing another truck around 22nd and 23rd. Ryan's coming around with the tape, we've got to cordon off any of the gas line exposure points."
Kevin pulled police line and fluorescent tapes out of his pocket, setting out the line where the firefighters had already started placing cones and then meeting with another one of the guys who was marking out the placement of the gas line between 22nd and 23rd. During all of this he was very carefully focused on his job, most decidedly not thinking about the woman he'd left behind in his apartment.
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The rest of the day passed in a blur. Ryan and Esposito were given smoke face masks by the firefighters, as the smoke continued to build, engulfing almost 5 blocks, though thankfully it remained just the one block as an explosive target. The firefighters kept returning to pull civilians out of the buildings, while Ryan and Esposito shepherded them out to the waiting EMTs that were situated away from the worst of the smoke. Once the fires from the aftermath of the explosions were maintained, Ryan and Esposito caught sight of Castle and Beckett, who had been doing the same work at the other end of the block. The team met in the middle of the street to start taking notes and pictures of the graffiti covering the building across the street, mostly hate speech targeting Asian immigrants.
"Most of your evacuees? Seem like a concentration of immigrants?" Beckett asked, as the group of the four made it back to her car, away from enough of the smoke to talk without the heavy masks covering their entire faces.
"Yeah, probably about half. Give or take," Ryan replied, grimacing as he clicked through the pictures they'd taken. "Seriously, what the hell is wrong with people? Think it's domestic or international terrorism?"
"Who would be targeting immigrants internationally? Surely not a country hoping to win back its citizens by blowing them up?" Castle offered. "Punishment maybe, but then it would make more sense to assassinate them, rather than blow up a building and chance killing innocents."
"That's one point of view, but I'm leaning towards domestic anyway," Beckett sighed. "First things first though, we've got to figure out if this was an attack specific to immigrants in this building, or if there are other buildings that could be next."
"We're on it," Esposito replied quickly. "We can check surveillance to see if we can find the perpetrators for this building."
"And we can look for other buildings with similar tags, slurs, phrasings, anything that could be connected," Ryan added.
"Good, you two can handle that. Castle and I will question witnesses here and follow up with the bomb squad, see if we can pin down a signature in the explosives that will give us any clues."
"Okay, we'll give a call if we get any insights."
From: Alexis: 7am
Everything ok? I've been watching the news, looks like the fire is contained.
From: Alexis: 7:45am
Only 1 fatality so far. Any search and rescue set up or were you guys able to get everyone out?
From: Alexis: 9:30am
Oh, just saw the update. Everyone registered to the building is accounted for. Still just 1 fatality and 8 hospitalizations, non-critical. Good work on that. I'll convince Gran to send the firefighters a fruit basket. And a muffin basket. Does the 12supth/sup need any sustenance?
From: Alexis: 10:45am
I know you're busy. Just. Text me a quick 'k' when you can.
From: Kevin: 11:20am
K
From: Alexis: 11:22am
Thanks. : ) Let me know if there's anything I can do. Food or otherwise ; )
From: Kevin: 11:23am
K
From: Kevin: 11:23am
; )
There were very few surveillance systems giving any sort of view of either the targeted building or the graffitied building, but Ryan and Esposito did manage to find one storefront camera that captured a group in long dark grey hooded robes, disappearing around a corner of 23rd street at 11:30pm last night.
"If these are the guys we're looking at, they must tag a place just hours before the explosions are set to go off," Esposito noted.
"So, what do we do with that? Get a cop sitting at the corner of every block to see if a group of Gandalf the Greys start tagging a place?" Ryan asked, frowning as he flicked through footage from a restaurant at the west end of 23rd street that seemed to have been damaged by the smoke.
"I don't know, man, if we can assume they're targeting immigrant-heavy buildings, we could set up corner cams focused on those streets."
"What if it's not immigrant-based at all? What if they go for any low-income or minority group? Or if it's politically based? Can you pull up that tag again?"
"Which one? The crossed vibrator-looking things?"
"They look way more like flashlights than vibrators," Ryan responded, thumping Esposito on the arm. Esposito merely chuckled and pulled up the pictures from the graffitied building again, careful to zoom in on the shield with two crossed objects.
"Damn, you know what they look like now?" Esposito said, leaning in.
"You better not say something like butt plugs," Ryan replied, pulling up his web image search for hate symbols represented by crossed weapons on shields to try to match the tag.
"Nah, bro. Grenades. Old style ones."
"From World War II?" Ryan asked, frowning as he edited the search for crossed grenades and pulled up an article on something called the Dirlewanger Brigade. Whose symbol was crossed grenades on a shield.
"Yeah, I'd say that's it," Esposito said, looking at the article over Ryan's shoulder. "Fucking Neo-Nazis? Really?"
"Fuck," Ryan groaned, running a hand across his face as Esposito's face clouded over. "Let's call Beckett, our target pool just got a hell of a lot bigger."
"No shit."
"Beckett."
"Hey, Beckett, we think we got the symbol."
"Yeah? How bad we looking at?"
"Neo-Nazis using a symbol of crossed grenades from a group of combative criminals in World War II," Ryan summed up quickly. "Based on the article, these guys had no mercy back then. A group of 500 school children was slaughtered. And that was one of their smaller raids."
"Dammit," Beckett swore into the phone. "I'll have the captain get all the other precincts in on this. Neo-Nazis with explosives are going to be unpredictable as hell."
"Yeah, no kidding. Want us to keep going over surveillance? Or need us to do any scouting with the bomb squad?"
"No, keep on the camera footage for now. Bomb squad is looking into military methods now, I'll let them to check in particular for anything in the explosive makes that could be linked to this group. What's it called?"
"Dirlewanger Brigade."
"Dirlewanger Brigade. Got it. Keep on surveillance until shift change, then go home and get some sleep. Be prepared first thing tomorrow that we're likely going to be collaborating with the FBI on this one."
"Sure thing, Beckett."
"We're all on call until this thing is resolved. That means you too, Ryan."
"Uh," Ryan's brain shorted out at the insinuation while Esposito, listening in, snickered.
"Why on earth would your phone have been turned off last night, Ry?" Beckett definitely had a sly edge to her voice now.
"It wasn't? It died?" Ryan felt his cheeks heating up and Esposito snatched the phone out of his hand.
"Our boy was gettin' laid, Becks," Esposito relayed to her.
"Well, good for him. But tell him not to turn his damn phone off," Beckett replied with a laugh in her voice and then she hung up.
"Got that, cowboy? Phone on during sex," Esposito chuckled, tossing the phone back to his partner.
"Yeah, I got it, bro. Won't happen again," Ryan shoved the phone back into his pocket.
By the time the night shift officers showed up to relieve them, both Ryan and Esposito were dead on their feet. Waking up to an adrenaline rush, working through that for a good 8-9 hours, and then being stuck in front of cameras until they could call it quits for the day really took its toll.
"Do you want a ride home?" Esposito asked. "My car's down in the garage, I don't mind a drive uptown."
"Nah, get back to Lanie, I can take the subway. Or a cab," Ryan replied, waving him off as he pulled up a string of texts on his phone, some from his sisters and a couple more from Alexis. "Subway is probably faster this time of day anyway."
"Yeah, you're probably right on that," Esposito said, glancing around at the quickly filling intersections. "Well, sleep well bro. Let that girl get your mind off the day, come back fresh tomorrow."
"Same to you, Javi," Ryan replied with a wink. "I'm sure your girl will be happy to keep you occupied. Just don't fall asleep on her."
"Never!"
With that they parted, Esposito to the lower level parking garage and Ryan pulling his subway card out of his wallet as he walked out down to the stop.
Ryan read again the messages on his phone, sending out quick texts to reassure his family that he was fine. Yes, he'd been there, but they shouldn't be too worried. Just call him immediately if they saw a group of people in long dark grey hooded robes, as fit the description put out on the city-wide BOLO earlier this evening. He then turned to Alexis's later texts.
From: Alexis: 12:25pm
I left some mini-muffins on your counter, bringing the rest of the basket to Dad.
From: Alexis: 12:45pm
Dad mentioned you and Espo were stuck on surveillance in the basement. Make sure he doesn't eat all the muffins, but I can't guarantee there will be any left when you guys get up here. This is the fullest I've ever seen the precinct.
From: Alexis: 5:15pm
I got takeout from that Thai place down the street. The one with the good egg rolls. You've got drunken noodles in the fridge. Heading home to be with Gran for the night. Hopefully Dad and Kate make their way here for a few hours of shut-eye.
From: Kevin: 6:45pm
You are a goddess.
From: Kevin: 6:50pm
Can I call you?
Incoming call from: Alexis
"Hey"
"Hey"
"You sound dead."
"I am a bit, on the subway now. Heading home."
"Finally."
"Yeah," Kevin sighed out that last word. Just hearing her voice lifted a weight off his shoulders and replaced itself with exhaustion. "How's Martha holding up?"
"Gran's fine. She's worried, she's got both Dad and Kate out there now," Alexis paused with a small snort. "So, she's been cooking. Expect a casserole in your fridge and another in your freezer tomorrow."
"Ha, sure, use me to just constantly unload food on," Kevin replied. "See how much you want those 12 hours when I've gained 40 pounds from casseroles and can't even make it down my own stairs."
Alexis laughed and the sound brought a smile to Kevin's face. "Well, then I guess it's a good thing you won't be leaving the apartment for those 12 hours. I'm sure we could work those 40 pounds off, no problem."
"Woah, easy on the flirting there, junior. You're gonna seduce me with lines like those."
Alexis's laugh this time was even fuller and Kevin felt the last remaining tension melt away from his shoulders.
"So you're just going to get home and crash?"
"Well, first I'll eat some drunken noodles. I am starving," Kevin assured her. "But then, yes, pretty much just sleep. Head back to the precinct for 7am. Meet with the FBI, and we'll set up a game plan."
"Geez, the FBI is being brought into this one?"
"Yeah, it's looking like domestic terrorism, and that's pretty much their area of expertise."
"Yeah, I guess," there was a pause here as Alexis considered what to say next and Kevin got off the subway to make his way to his building. "So, how worried should we be?"
"At Castle's building? Not much. These guys are more likely to target minority areas. But keep an eye out. If you see a group of people dressed like Gandalf, you take Martha and get the hell over to my apartment, okay?"
"Yeah, ok," Alexis sighed into the phone, wishing she could see his face to read if there was even a little bit of joking in that statement. "Gandalf, really?"
"Sadly, yeah. Long dark grey hooded robes."
"Oh, right, we saw the APB."
"Good. Well, it looks like they tagged the place across the street about 4 hours before the first explosion. So if we can catch them tagging, the hope is we'll be able to evacuate and minimize damage of the explosions."
"You got anyone to watch your area while you sleep? Colleges can attract minority groups."
"Yeah, Columbia is pretty well situated with surveillance cameras. The night shift offices are on surveillance throughout the city."
"Good."
"Yeah," Kevin paused again as he unlocked the door to his apartment. The first thing that greeted him on walking in was the covered plate of chocolate chip mini-muffins on the center of the counter. "You are amazing. You know that, right?"
"Hmm, I do get told that from time to time," Alexis let the smile shine through her voice, though she could feel her cheeks heating up. It was one thing to read it from a text or hear it from her dad, entirely another to have a super hot recent sexual partner tell her that. "You're home now?"
"Yeah, and looking at a plate of joy."
"Well, eat your dinner first."
"Hmm? Din't get tha," Kevin replied around a mouthful of muffin. Alexis chuckled, pulling the phone away from her ear for a moment.
"Dad just texted. He and Kate are on their way home now."
"Good. Make sure they get sleep too. I'm surprised he was able to pull Beckett away."
"Oh I'm sure it was unwillingly. But they need a break. And Gran needs some time for her dramatic pause. So, I guess that leaves me to clean up from all the cooking."
"Alright, guess I'll eat some dinner and go to bed then."
"Ok."
"Thanks for the call."
"Any time. Good night, Kevin."
"Good night, Alexis."
