Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or the recognizable characters who appear in this story. Any other names, for characters or businesses, are fictional.
Week Three
"So, does this count as 'real dancing'?" Fred asks, demurely blotting her forehead with a handkerchief, her dazzling smile distracting anyone from noticing her perspiration.
"I think so," Castle says with a laugh, panting a bit himself, "we'd better try again after a break, just to make sure."
"Seriously, where'd you learn how to dance like this?" she asks as he escorts her to their table.
"Mother," he says with a smile. "She's an actress. I was raised by a rotating cast of occasionally sober friends and associates, most of whom were actors, singers, or dancers. I learned more than you can imagine in dimly lit backstages," he offers with an eyebrow waggle.
"I just bet you did," Fred answers with a laugh. "Is your mom a dancer, too?"
"She thinks she is," Castle answers with a wicked smile as he holds a chair out for her, "and it's easier for the rest of us to let her maintain the illusion. It keeps the peace at home, at least until she threatens to blow the speakers with her showtunes."
"You live with your mom?" Fred asks with another laugh. "I can't believe that wasn't one of your lines when you were trying to pick me up, considering everything else you mentioned."
"Hey, I'm the one who's supposed to have the wild imagination," he rebuts as he sits down across from her at their tiny table. "First, we both know I didn't try to pick you up – no way I'm going to hurt my batting average by swinging at an unhittable pitch," he says importantly, prompting Fred to roll her eyes and shake her head. "Second, mother lives with me, not the reverse. A subtle reordering of words, but it makes all the difference in the world."
"Oh, what a nice boy you are," Fred laughs again, reaching across the table to pat his cheek while speaking like an old, approving grandmother. "So, it's the three of you, then – you and your ladies?"
"Yep," Castle beams proudly. "Rick and the redheads. It's not a conventional arrangement, but it works for us. Alexis raises me and Mother keeps my ego in check – they're quite the team. You'll see what I mean."
"Meet the family? What, are we getting serious or something?" she asks with a teasing look.
"Please," Castle huffs, "I am *so* out of your league," he explains to her bark of a laugh. "Now, I'm going to go get us some drinks to allow your suitors a clear field. Happy hunting," he says with a small salute, leaving her looking exasperated and just a little uncomfortable.
Castle takes his time, having been serious about leaving her alone for a bit. Fred's an incredible beauty and he didn't miss the admiring glances she received from several people in the club, including some in whom she might actually have an interest. So, a quick trip to the restroom, a call home to check on Alexis, and a couple online checks precede his trip to the bar. By the time he returns to her side, more than twenty minutes have passed.
"Any luck?" he asks in a cheerful voice, presenting both a drink and a bottle of water.
"You know it's too early," she objects quietly. "Besides, it was mostly guys who came over. Where were you when I needed you?" she asks with a poke.
"Easy, there," Castle pushes back. "My throng of admirers was even larger than usual, it took me forever to get through them so I could get back to you."
Fred rolls her eyes at his ridiculousness, and this time he barely flinches.
"Speaking of admirers," she retorts slowly and Castle tenses up, not ready for the conversation he thinks she's introducing, "I've got some questions for you."
"I'm not ready yet, Fred," he answers quickly and quietly, trying to forestall a question about his own romantic opportunities.
Shaking her head, Fred gives him a look of exasperation. "I'm not pushing you there. Yet," she adds when she sees him looking too thankful. "But if I'm being nice to you there, I get to give you trouble about everything else. So," she says with a penetrating look, "what the hell was going on when I picked you up from work this evening?"
"What do you mean?" Castle asks in confusion, thinking back.
"I'm talking about bad poetry!" she teases him, swatting his shoulder. "Seriously, every guy I saw tried to compare me to something arboreal or expound on the virtues of my beauty. Actually," she corrects, "every person I saw had a go. Even Carla!"
"What's wrong with that? You are a beauty," he asks in lingering confusion, though he's now got an idea about what's going on.
"Depends on where their eyes lingered before they started talking," she says primly. "This is your doing, isn't it?" she accuses with a knowing look, leaving Castle wondering how his new friend has already figured out some of his mischievous ways. "You told them you wooed me with poetry, didn't you, that night we met? So now they're all trying to hone literary pickup techniques?"
"Maybe?" Castle answers with a flinch, comically awaiting another whack. Instead, she levels a look that makes clear her desire for a more fulsome explanation. "It's like we talked about the first night – the people at work aren't big readers, which just strikes me as something sad. So, I took an opportunity to give them an incentive to become a little better-read."
"Romance novels and sappy poetry, though?" Fred asks in exasperation. "You might be helping them, but you're doing a serious disservice to the women of the city!"
"Perhaps," Castle replies with a laugh, "though however bad their pickup lines, I'm sure they'd be no better without my influence. Besides, a few have actually asked for real reading recommendations."
"So, they're reading instead of spending all their spare in the gym?" she asks, casting him an indulgent look.
"No," he laughs, "we still spend our idle time lifting heavy pieces of metal. They aren't fools – they know six-pack abs will win them far more attention than knowing Wordsworth, Neruda, Whitman, or Rilke, at least the kind of attention in which they're currently most interested."
"Such a writer," Fred laughs while shaking her head, though Castle's not sure if her comment is in reference to his impromptu literature lessons or the phrasing of his response. "So, do I know anything you've written?"
"Perhaps," he allows, chuckling to himself at imagining his friend's reactions to his demure response to Fred's question. "I could give you a title, but then you'd be able to look me up…"
"No, no, no," she answers happily. "I'm still enjoying the mystery – we'll get to your details later. I just wondered if you've written enough that I might've seen something of yours."
"Know anyone who's died recently?" he asks while taking a sip of his drink, finally earning the swat he'd expected earlier. It's an old joke already, his first answer to her question about what kind of things he wrote, back on the evening they met. She'd nodded, saying that it made his new job a more obvious choice. He hadn't shared that comment with Alexis.
"Keep recycling that joke and the actual obituary writer will have one more to do," she says grimly, then laughs when she can't manage to keep a straight face. "So, backing up a little, how are your efforts going? Is there a six-pack under there?" she asks, brazenly poking at his midsection.
"I'm somewhere between a keg and a six-pack," Castle admits with a laugh. "Getting there, though. Those bastards push me hard. That's the other reason we're talking literature – if they can beat me into shape on one front, I can return the favor on another."
"Seems like a bit of a waste," Fred leads, pulling Castle's attention away from the dancers he was watching. "When do you think you'll be ready to let some lovely lady inspect the results of your efforts? Not pushing," she says quickly with palms raised, "just wondering about timeframes."
"Fred…," Castle trails off, leaning back in his chair and running a hand through his hair. "I don't really know. I wish I could tell you that I'm done, that I'm content to live my life as a hermit. But even I know that won't work – I just enjoy people too much. I meet them, I learn their stories, and I start making up my own for them. And then before I know it, I've fallen in love with the story." He stops and pauses for a moment, as if he's surprised to have tripped over an unrecognized truth. "But then the story doesn't match the reality, and I'm cast adrift again," he says in dawning realization.
Fred gives him a compassionate look, recognizing that he's wrestling with something. To provide a small bit of comfort, she reaches out and places her hand on his, just to remind him that he's not alone.
"It'll happen again," he says quietly in a voice of acceptance. "It's who I am, probably part of being a writer. And if that's what it takes for me to write, I'll accept it," he says with a small smile and a shrug. "But I'm not going to rush into it. I'm not writing much right now, mostly just taking notes for later. So, we'll let it ride until I get pulled back in."
After a few minutes of listening to the music and watching the other dancers, Castle taps on her hand to signal the end of his introspection. "So, anyone to keep an eye on for you while we're here?" he asks, taking a deep draught of his own water and wondering if dancing together again will help or hurt her chances.
"Shaka, when the walls fell," Fred sighs, though her attention is immediately captured when Castle's bottle lands on the table.
"Did you just speak Tamarian?" he asks, flabbergasted.
"Maybe," she allows with a shy smile.
"That is easily the coolest thing I've heard this week," he enthuses, his boyish delight radiating from him and prompting a laugh from Fred.
"Seeing as it's Tuesday, that's not terribly impressive," she teases back.
"Then I guess we should try it again at the end of the week," he suggests with a cocked brow.
Shaking her head, Fred laughs again. "Is this a thing of yours, where you just keep setting me up for our next outing?"
"Absolutely," he agrees mirthfully.
"Okay, but it's back to my pick," she says in delight. "You have boots?" she asks with a wicked smile. "Western boots, not those things you wear on your new toy. You're gonna need 'em."
"I've got something that'll work," he admits, looking intrigued. "We goin' to a hoe-down? Line dancing? Ooh! Mechanical bull riding?!" he asks excitedly.
"Boot-scootin'," she answers with a smile, deciding that she'll watch his reaction when he sees the bull rather than confirm his guess now. "Time for a little honkey-tonkin'. You ever been?"
"Not since…," he starts, then trails off. If she doesn't want clues about who he is, he can't tell her about his little escapade on his Storm tour through the South. He's still not sure whether he's allowed back into Alabama, so that story's probably easy to find. But seriously, how was he supposed to know that his dance partner was dating a backwoods behemoth? And isn't "Gimme three steps" exactly the right request when faced with a confrontation like that?
"Not since I was younger," he amends, blushing.
"So, a long time ago, then," Fred asks with a smile, getting rolled eyes in return.
"Come on, come dance with me. It'll be fun," he tempts as he extends a hand to her and helps her rise from her seat. "And maybe it'll keep you quiet."
"Doubtful," she pretends to grump as she stands. "I've got dibs on any blondes. Or brunettes."
"Leaving me the redheads?" Castle asks incredulously as he leads her to the dance floor. "'Cause that's worked out so well for me in the past."
"Worse than blondes or brunettes?" she asks with a cocked brow.
"You really know how to cheer a guy up," Castle grouses as Fred laughs and spins him into place.
"Thank you, detectives," Montgomery says as he closes the file. "I don't have any more questions. This was a nice close, especially considering the recent changes to your team."
His comment earns some nods and a shrug, but no one chooses to answer. They're starting to rise when the desk phone chimes with the ring of an internal number. Checking the screen, Montgomery heaves a sigh. "Mendoza," he grumbles. "I ha… don't like this guy."
Beckett chuckles to herself. It's nice to know, she thinks in a self-defeating kind of way, that regardless of how high you climb the career ladder, you never quite break free of annoyances and irritations.
Nodding to his detectives to signal the end of their meeting, Montgomery lifts the handset. "Hey, Mateo, what can I do for you?" Beckett pauses in her departure when she sees Montgomery knit his brows and make a hand gesture pointing down, guiding his detectives back into their seats. "Yeah, I still talk to Castle. Look, I've got his team in my office. Should I put you on speaker?"
"His team?" comes the crackly voice through the speaker phone on Montgomery's desk. "I thought he finally got fed up and walked?"
"He had to take a break," Montgomery says gently, not sure if his caller knows the circumstances of Castle's departure. "We expect him back in a few months."
"Bullshit," the voice on the phone chuffs out in disagreement. "I looked at, like, all your case files and it looks to me like he was never there. You guys never talk about him in the reports."
"Well," Montgomery explains with a moue of distaste, "he's a consultant. The DA's office prefers that the main people involved in our reports be sworn officers. But if you have any questions," he says quickly, lest his caller take command of the conversation again, "why not ask his team? Homicide Detectives Beckett, Esposito, and Ryan, this is Mateo Mendoza, Captain of the 28th."
"Homicide," Mendoza laughs. "Like you have homicides over in your little fairyland," Mendoza laughs. "I got race riots, arsons, OC, homicides – where we only get pieces, not bodies – and if I want my requisitions filled, I gotta go to the local gangs. Whadda you got? Some jaywalking tourists and I-bankers who kill their cheating mistresses?"
"Well, Teo, if our precinct dealt with as much crime as yours does," he says while rolling his eyes for his detectives' benefit, "then we'd have to work more than 20 hours a week. That'd make it hard to get tee times and spa appointments."
"Ha! I knew it. Pussies," Mendoza gloats, sounding for all the world like he's just secured a confession in interrogation.
Watching his detectives exchange wide-eyed looks, Montgomery is torn. As a general rule, the less time spent with Mendoza, the better. But maybe it's not all bad to let them see that their lot at the Twelfth, at least as far as the humanity of their captain goes, isn't all bad. The thought provokes a small smile, but he decides he's being petty and opts to move things along.
"Teo, is there a reason you asked about Castle?" he asks, focusing the conversation.
"Yeah," Mendoza replies, sounding a little uncomfortable. Uh oh, Montgomery thinks – Mendoza is one of those guys who doesn't apologize for his behavior, despite the frighteningly frequent need to do so. If he's uncomfortable, then something bad happened. Involving Castle.
"Yeah…," Mendoza trails off again. "Look, I'm not gonna press charges. Will you make sure he doesn't file a complaint?"
Beckett looks alarmed, but the boys are intrigued, trading surprised looks. Then Esposito cocks an eyebrow at his partner, who sighs in response. Reaching for his wallet, Ryan mumbles while pulling out a twenty and slapping it into a gloating Esposito's palm. Apparently, there was at least one person on the team who expected Castle to get himself into trouble after his departure from the Twelfth.
With his elbow on the desk and his forehead on his palm, Montgomery heaves a huge sigh. "Teo, what the hell happened? Castle was a big help around here. He's gone for a few minutes and you guys mess with him?"
"Just one guy – Halsey," Mendoza says in a low voice. He might've been quiet, but everyone in Montgomery's office reacts, having either had the misfortune to meet or hear the stories about Detective Pete Halsey. He's known around the Department as "Palsy," mostly because he tried to nickname himself "the Admiral," although his occasional trembles mean that suspected chemical enhancement might've prompted the name, too. There isn't a problem that can't be solved by brute force, according to Palsy.
"Dammit, Teo, how's Halsey still got a job after all the shit he's pulled?" Montgomery asks in disbelief, worrying about where this story's going.
"Come talk to me when Ethan Slaughter's gone," Mendoza growls, as Montgomery nods at the point.
"So, what does Halsey say happened with Castle?" Montgomery asks. "From my recollection, the Internal Review Board has had a few things to say about his ability to recall facts accurately."
"Halsey can't really say anything for another three-to-six weeks," Mendoza chuffs out, "and writing ain't really his thing. We got a witness statement, though."
"Teo, we've got precincts to run – stop dragging this out," Montgomery pushes, wanting to get this over with. "What happened?"
"Palsy was off duty, talking shit in some bar," Mendoza explains, slipping in his reference to Halsey. "He had a go at a group of guys and one of them talks back." At this, Beckett closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose, suspecting what's coming. "Well, Palsy, he don't like that too much. Turns out he's not 'specially gifted at playing with words and he usually hits what he don't understand. So, this guy starts giving him shit, and Palsy loses his cool. Reaches out, grabs the guy, and pulls him over the table. Drinks get tossed, glass goes flying everywhere, people stand up. Still, sounds like it almost ended okay. Until your boy said something that really set Palsy off."
"I can imagine," Montgomery mumbles, getting uncomfortable nods from the detectives in his office.
"So, Palsy gives him a body shot, no big deal," he says, trying to make this sound like a non-event."They scuffle a bit. Turns out your boy can take a pounding. He's also got a thick head," Mendoza continues while Esposito earns himself cross looks from Montgomery and Beckett for his quick agreement. "Thicker than Palsy's nose, anyway. So, they trade shots until Palsy goes down."
"Castle put Palsy down?" Esposito asks in surprise before Montgomery can say anything. "He's damn lucky Palsy didn't pull his piece."
There's a mumble on the other end of the line that immediately catches Montgomery's attention. "What was that, Teo?"
"I said," Mendoza replies, sounding like a child caught misbehaving, "he did."
"Am I to understand," Montgomery flares up, suddenly sounding as authoritative and officious as an NYPD captain can, "that your detective started a fight with an unarmed civilian, then pulled his weapon? And you want me to get Castle to keep this quiet?"
"Nothin' happened," Mendoza answers, reaching for some gravitas himself. "The weapon came out and that's when your boy's friends got involved. Ol' Palsy found himself surrounded by a group of rough, pissed-off lookin' dudes. He put the piece away, they 'gently' escorted him out of the premises and into the dumpster. They went back to drinking and he went to the clinic. No harm, no foul." When silence fills the air that Mendoza had hoped would instead produce words of agreement, he tries one more tactic. "Your boy's a hero to his friends and Mendoza's jaw's wired shut for 'bout a month. Everything's good, right?"
"Media?" Montgomery asks, worried about the implications of this confrontation.
"Nah," Mendoza replies nonchalantly. "It was a slow night and fights ain't exactly unusual there. No one even traded names, but the bartender recognized Castle from some meeting they went to about liquor licensing requirements. He's the one who called me on this – 's always good to have a bartender as a CI," he explains, and every officer in Montgomery's office suspects that Mendoza turns a blind eye to the bar in return for the informant's efforts. "He told me Castle was involved – to everyone else he just seemed like the smart-ass of his group."
"Teo, give me a minute," Montgomery says as he presses the mute button on his phone and turns to his detectives. "As much as this pisses me off, I think we need to let this slide."
"Sir?" Beckett asks in surprise. "We can't let this go. Castle might not be a cop but he's still one of the Twelfth. You know what'll happen if we back down from this," she says, though Montgomery suspects she has other motivations for her outburst. Esposito's nodding vigorously about the slight on the Twelfth, while Ryan looks on curiously to see how his captain will respond.
"We'll handle that a different way, out of the public eye," Montgomery allows, unwilling to officially sanction any bad blood between his detectives and Palsy or the 28th while privately happy that they're banding together. "But think about this – what d'you think the DA would do if he heard about a fight between Castle and a member of the NYPD? How easy would it be for Castle to come back after that?"
"Assuming he wants to come back," Beckett wonders, missing the surprised look from her teammates.
"Teo," Montgomery says after unmuting his phone. "I'll talk with Castle. You owe me for this."
"Yeah, yeah," Mendoza replies breezily. "Put in a good word for us, eh? You guys might not want him, but I'll take all the help I can get over here."
"What?" Montgomery asks in confusion, articulating the surprise he sees from others in the room. "No way."
"You kiddin'?" Mendoza replies. "I got the union riding my ass, sick-outs from my uniforms, and civil rights suits all over the fuckin' place. You lose a guy who's buddies with the mayor, willing to work for free, and isn't above a little brawling? Shit, I ain't proud, I'll take your leftovers."
"Castle needed to step away due to a political situation," Montgomery responds delicately, annoyed by Mendoza's brazen attempt to appropriate an asset from the Twelfth.
"Who the fuck cares about politics?" Mendoza answers roughly. "They're all liars and they'll be gone soon enough anyway. Besides, any politician wants to try to run my precinct, he's welcome to it."
"You might not put much thought into political considerations," Montgomery responds, wondering again how this joker managed to rise to the level of captain with his disdain for authority, "but Castle does. He stepped away by request and won't return to the NYPD until it's appropriate to do so."
"Whatever," Mendoza replies, clearly uninterested in pursuing a discussion where it's obvious they'll continue to disagree. "Even if he doesn't have the balls to come back now, he'll remember who wanted him."
"Especially with such a pleasant expression of your interest," Montgomery notes acerbically, winning only a hearty laugh from Mendoza.
"Whatever," the captain of the 28th repeats again with another laugh. "I'll ask him myself. But after you get him to ignore his little run-in with Halsey. Thanks for that, Roy!" he says quickly before disconnecting the call.
"Jackass," Montgomery mutters as he lifts and replaces the handset to ensure that the line is disconnected. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, he looks back at his assembled detectives. "Well, there's a little insight into the glamor of the lives of NYPD captains," he says with a huff. "Better get outta here before your peek behind the curtain shows me breaking something or taking up smoking again. Back to work, detectives."
All three of them, especially Beckett, linger in their effort to depart, hoping to hear at least the beginning of Montgomery's call to Castle. But it looks like the captain is going to wait, either to make Mendoza twist for a bit or to give himself the chance to calm down. Probably both.
"No way, dude," Esposito objects, appalled by his partner's poor taste. "Ashley Judd is totally the hottest college basketball fan," he restates his unassailable position. "No one else's even in her league. That's why the camera always shows her in the stands, and that's who I'll be watching for during the games this weekend."
"But she's got that germ thing," Ryan retorts with a scrunched nose. "Unless hand sanitizer and handi-wipes are part of the appeal?"
"Some ladies," Esposito fires back, "are worth cleaning up for."
Dropping her pen on the desk, Beckett enters the fray, though she suspects she'll regret it. "Really, Espo? Is that a line you use? 'Hey baby, I'd take a shower for you.' Way to keep it classy."
"Any pickup line that involves showers can only go well," he replies with a shrug, looking smug until Ryan's wadded up ball of paper rebounds off his forehead. Esposito moves to retrieve the projectile, but freezes as soon as he's standing. "Check it out," he says in a low tone. "That's gotta be Castle, right?"
Ryan and Beckett swivel their heads to check out Montgomery's office. Through the glass, they can see the captain laughing, so wound up that he's wiping an eye with the hand not holding the phone to his ear.
"Gotta be," Ryan agrees. "He's talking about making someone else's life difficult. If that happened here," he speculates, "Montgomery would be scowling. Or crying."
"Look at him," Esposito marvels. The Captain's now standing, holding the phone to his ear with a shoulder while making boxing motions with his hands. "They must be talking about the fight."
As they watch, something he hears makes Montgomery laugh again. His mirthful motions dislodge the phone, which tumbles from his shoulder toward the floor. Still chuckling, he grabs the cord and reels in the handset, taking his seat again.
"Must've been quite a fight," Ryan says with a small smile on his face.
"Nah, Castle's prob'ly just making it all up. He was always good with stories," Esposito fires back. "Right, Beckett?"
"Almost, Espo," she answers without turning her head to him, instead watching a chuckling Montgomery end his call, wiping his eyes again. "No past tense. He is always good with stories."
Now that the call is over, the detectives turn back to their paperwork before Montgomery catches them watching. They think they've gotten away with it until the Captain's voice rings through the bullpen. "Beckett?"
Looking up, she see Montgomery motion her into his office with a tilt of his head. He doesn't wait for her, so he's already seated behind his desk by the time she enters his office. With a look and a small nod, he asks her to shut the door.
"So," Montgomery asks, "how's your project coming along?"
"My Castle project?" Beckett asks to make sure they're talking about the same thing. "Pretty well. The mayor's help has sped things along. Hannah's amazing – almost as sharp as Alexis."
"But?" the captain asks, having read something in Beckett's demeanor that suggests a problem.
"But it's not really my nature," Beckett confesses, "just to play defense."
"Ahhhh," Montgomery replies, nodding as he considers her answer. He should've anticipated this reaction, he realizes. His detectives are not shy. They do not wait for the answers, or the perps, to come to them. Of course Beckett is feeling stifled.
"Let's have a drink," Montgomery offers while reaching into his desk drawer for his bottle of Beau James, shocking Beckett. "If we're going to scheme and plot, we might as well do it right," he offers with a small, wicked smile.
Having poured the drinks, he holds his glass above his desk, high enough to make a toast but not high enough to catch too much attention from the bullpen.
"To Castle, who can cause chaos even by his absence," Montgomery says with a smile. "And who did us all a favor by punching Palsy in the face."
"Cheers," Beckett replies with a smile of her own, downing the drink after tapping glasses with her captain. "So, Castle's okay then?"
"He's fine," Montgomery laughs. "It sounds like it was quite the evening," he marvels with a shake of his head. "He doesn't remember much of what happened after the fight – his friends we so impressed with him that they drank quite a bit, though after moving to a different bar."
"These friends," Beckett wonders aloud, "are they okay?" She seems to struggle for a moment, trying to decide about whether to speak her larger concern. A look from Montgomery provides all the encouragement she needs. "Did they buy him a drink because he won a fight, or because he decked a cop?"
Montgomery scrunches his mouth and thinks for a moment. "So, you don't know what he's up to, then? He's fine. They're fine. They're just not big fans of the police."
"Thanks," Beckett says sarcastically. "That totally puts my mind at ease."
"He'll be fine," Montgomery replies, ignoring the barb because he recognizes the source of her discomfort. "But, no more of that from me – the mayor asked me to keep quiet about this, and I suspect Castle asked the same of you."
Beckett nods but still looks uncomfortable.
"He'll be fine," Montgomery repeats himself again. "He sure as hell took care of himself last night!" he laughs. When Beckett continues to look uncomfortable, he tries a different approach. "Look. If Castle's going to come back to the NYPD – and I think he can, regardless of what he's doing now – then I'd prefer it be here, Beckett," Montgomery says as his glass returns to the desktop. "You okay with that?"
Nodding, Beckett agrees. "That's why I'm working on my project."
"Good, good," he answers, letting his eyes drift a bit. For a small moment, Beckett wonders if he's a lightweight, if his one drink has rendered him hazy. But when his eyes return to her, they are clear, focused, and hard.
"Offense," he says to her is a clear, commanding voice. "What did you have in mind?"
"Looking into DA Turner," Beckett answers readily. "If his candidacy goes down, then there's no reason Castle can't come back," she says, hoping Montgomery can't see through her to identify any other motivation. "I know it's not appropriate for me to investigate the DA, and there are probably hundreds of media people doing the same thing…"
"But none of them are you," Montgomery says with an affirming nod. "And I'd bet on you any day, over all of them combined. But," he draws out, "I think you should expand the scope of your inquiries."
"Sir?" Beckett asks, brows knit as she considers his suggestion. "You mean not just Turner, but his office?"
"I am certain," the Captain answers with an odd air of resignation, "that there is a history of corruption at the DA's office. Start looking into Turner and you might be surprised by what else you find."
"Cheers," Lanie says as she clinks glasses with Beckett, licking her lips in appreciation of the fresh-squeezed orange juice and crisp champagne. Ensconced in a posh table at Stephanie's, the ladies are dressed up, taking a rare opportunity to treat themselves to a fancy brunch.
"Now this is the way to live," Lanie enthuses, looking around again in delight. "A girl could get used to this kind of thing."
"As long as a girl could get used to poverty, too," Beckett answers with a laugh. "Still, this makes for a nice treat."
"You're talking about the company, right, not the restaurant?" Lanie teases from behind her menu.
"Absolutely," Beckett agrees with a smile, placing her menu on the table.
"You pick that up right now, Kate Beckett," Lanie says in mock annoyance. "You always do that – you know what you want within ten seconds. It's too much pressure!" Lanie whispers. "I haven't even read half the menu yet. Pick that back up and keep me company."
Beckett laughs but does as her friend requests, picking the menu up again. Just for kicks, she decides to read all of the options, since she stopped when her eyes alit on a favorite. A few minutes later, Lanie gives a happy sigh, closes her menu, and sets it gently on the table.
"Is it safe to lower my menu now?" Beckett asks with a perched brow.
"I suppose," Lanie allows, "though perhaps I should have you hold onto it as a visual aide."
Beckett's about to ask for an explanation when their waitress arrives, making the discussion moot as she collects the menus before floating away with their orders.
"Sorry, Lanie, no visual aide," Beckett laments, showing empty palms instead. "I guess we'll have to make do with just our conversational skills."
"Good thing we're not men," her friend replies, and they share a private laugh.
"True," Beckett admits before looking around. "I was going to joke about there being no TVs or sports-talk radio stations here, but it's no joke. Look around – there are so few men, and they don't look especially happy to be here."
Beckett's not wrong, Lanie realizes quickly. There might be twenty tables in this atrium, with men at four or five. And most of the gentlemen look glum, as if they were crammed into fancy clothes and told to mind their manners when they'd much rather be out playing or getting ready for another day of watching the college basketball tournament.
"Seems like Castle'd be okay here, though," Lanie says leadingly. "I can easily imagine him at a table with his redheads, telling jokes and flirting with the wait staff."
"You're probably right," Beckett admits, surprised at how easy it is to imagine the scene. "It's funny – in some ways he's such a guy. But in others, he doesn't seem to care about guy stuff."
"Like basketball?" Lanie asks in annoyance. "I swear, I dread March. Javi won't shut up about his stupid bracket. It drives me crazy!" she complains. "Is he like that at the precinct, too?"
"Nope," Beckett says happily, raising her glass. "Here's the trick: submit a bracket in the office pool. Then, when he mentions it, just tell him that you based your picks on jersey colors, mascots, or hottest coach. He'll be so appalled, especially if you beat him, that he won't mention it again."
Lanie's smiling wide, appreciating the advice. "Perfect," she says with satisfaction. "Remind me of this next year. We'll have a little Selection Sunday of our own, ranking coach booties. Maybe I'll invite Javi, too," she says with a cackle.
"Cheers!" Beckett offers in return, and the ladies clink glasses again before Lanie signals the waitress for refills.
"Is this Josh's kind of place?" Lanie asks, returning to their earlier topic with wide-eyed innocence.
"Subtle, Lanie," Beckett says with an eye roll. "No, it's not really a place where I could see him being comfortable. Though I'm not sure where he'd be comfortable anymore."
"Well, that sounds like something we should talk about," Lanie says, diving in. "What does that mean?"
"It means," Beckett says with some resignation, "that aside from his seat on the plane and a far-away clinic, I'm not sure where he's comfortable."
"Wait," her friend commands with hand lifted and palm facing Beckett. "Are you telling me he's back at his clinic in wherever?"
"He's in the air now," Beckett nods, taking another drink.
Lanie looks confused, uncertain if she should be more surprised by this news or Beckett's apparent nonchalance. "I thought he was sticking around for a while. What's going on?"
With a sigh, Beckett's about to explain when their meals arrive. Waiting politely during the tabling of the food, the ladies make pleasant conversation with their server. Once they're alone again, Beckett pops a beignet in her mouth for fortification and returns to their topic.
"He had an opportunity to go back, and with the way things are between us, it didn't make sense to stay."
"What the hell does that mean?" Lanie asks in confusion. "Are you two together or not?"
"Not really," Beckett offers with a mirthless laugh. "We're technically on a break now, using this trip as a chance to think about where we're going. We'll talk when he comes back."
"Which is…" Lanie leads with a circular hand-motion.
"In four to six weeks," Beckett replies, still sounding surprisingly unaffected.
"So you're just on hold?" Lanie asks, incredulous. "What are you – three year olds in time-out? You're either dating or you're not."
Beckett reaction makes her friend blush. "It was my idea, actually. And I think it's a good one, given how things have gone lately. I kind of wonder if taking a moment to think a few months ago wouldn't have done me some good, wouldn't have helped me make the right choice," she replies, hiding her face by attending to her meal. Her friend doesn't miss the non-verbal indication of some distress.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Lanie asks, surprising Beckett with a request, rather than a demand. Giving her friend a nod, takes another few bites while waiting for a question.
"I take it things haven't gone well since we last talked about this?" Lanie probes, wondering if Beckett's willingness to talk about this will evaporate if she pushes too hard.
"Not really," Beckett admits. "I might not've handled things exactly right," she prefaces with a sad, self-conscious grin. "But I decided Castle was right – I needed to try to talk to Josh about something real. So, I told him what happened to mom."
"Oh," Lanie replies, surprised that Beckett actually introduced her most personal topic. "How did that go?"
"Terribly," Beckett says with another mirthless laugh. "It started okay. I thought he might be angry that I hadn't told him about something so important to me, but he seemed okay with it."
"That's good," Lanie says cautiously.
"Yeah, that's what I thought, too," she confesses. "But then I started talking about how I transferred back from Stanford and he just got this weird look. He started talking calmly to me, telling me that people deal with grief differently and that there's no timetable for recovery."
"Oh, shit," Lanie moans, knowing as a doctor exactly what's wrong. "Did he forget you're his girlfriend, not his patient?"
"It was worse than that," Beckett says quietly, using her fork to push food around her plate. "Not only was it a speech he's probably given a hundred times, but I could tell he didn't believe it. He's sitting there telling me there's no timetable, but I could tell he was thinking that this happened when I was in college and I should be over it."
"Kate, maybe that's not all bad," Lanie tries to offer compassionately. "He's a doctor – you can't be surprised if he falls back on what he knows, especially if you surprise him. It still sounds like he tried to understand, even if he was a little clumsy. It's not like Castle, charging in and forcing details out of you."
"Castle didn't force anything out of me," Beckett answers, missing Lanie's look of doubt. "He actually figured out what happened to me on his own. And as uncomfortable as it was back then with Castle, I think it hurt worse that someone who I thought knew me was so clueless about the situation and dismissive when I told him."
"You sure Josh was dismissive?" Lanie asks, not sure why she finds herself defending Josh. "It sounds like he was cautious. That's hardly how Castle handled it."
"I was furious with Castle because he poked into my private life and I was worried that he'd try to use the story for his book," Beckett replies, grasping to frame this the right way. "But two things saved him. He apologized," she says, watching Lanie nod, "and he never made me feel less because of it. In fact," she says, sounding reflective again, "he seemed to think it made me more – stronger, more focused."
Lanie nods, thinking back to that tense time and what Beckett told her back then. "That was later, though, right?" Lanie notes. "So, what'd Josh do later? From the way you're talking, it doesn't sound like he recovered very well."
"Right again," Beckett says with a forlorn smile. "We both knew the conversation hadn't gone very well. It just kind of sat there like a sore. So, I poked at it," she says with a shrug. "I brought it up a couple times over the week, but we never really discussed it for real. Until Thursday."
Meal forgotten, Lanie's focused on her friend, listening to her describe the slow implosion of her relationship. "A big fight, I guess?"
"No," Beckett disagrees, shaking her head. "A quiet fight."
Lanie nods sadly. She knows those fights – the ones that are all the more terrible for their lack of shouting to distract from the hard truths that might otherwise be tempered or overlooked.
"Let's just say that I've never thought of myself as 'needy' or 'clingy,'" she says to Lanie's incredulous look. "And I didn't react especially well to being characterized as such. It went downhill from there."
"Over a cliff, more like," Lanie supposes, causing quirked lips from her friend. "How'd it end?"
"You mean who got the last word?" Beckett asks shrewdly. "I thought I did. I was so heartbroken, Lanes. Every exchange just sent us farther apart, made us wonder what we were doing together. What we were giving up to be together. He said he missed his travel," she says quietly. "It was the most honest thing he'd said, so I responded in kind," she confesses in a low voice, looking at her friend. "I said 'I miss Castle.'"
"Oh, Kate," Lanie says sadly. "And that wasn't enough to end the conversation?"
"No," Beckett replies. "The conversation ended when he said 'So do I.'"
The ladies sit quietly, Lanie in shock and Beckett in contemplation. Their waitress stops by, clearing away the remnants of their dishes and dropping off desert menus. Beckett tries to waive off the idea of dessert, which Lanie immediately shuts down, noting that the conversation certainly justifies some indulgence. After making small talk until their coffees are refilled, Lanie restarts the conversation.
"I don't understand," she mentions gently, "the time-out thing. It doesn't sound to me like there's much left to your relationship."
"I think you're right," Beckett agrees. "And I think he does, too. I don't doubt that he went into the hospital and arranged the trip he's on now. We'll talk when he gets back, but I don't think there's much point."
"So why not just make a clean break?" Lanie asks in confusion. "Why draw this out?"
"I need some time, Lanie," Beckett tries to explain. "I need some time to just think things through. With Josh gone, I can just think, like I did that weekend after the bomb. I need to make some decisions, actually pursue what I want rather than fall into it or hide from difficult choices. Being on hold gives me some cover for a month while I figure things out."
"Exactly," Lanie answers in satisfaction, catching Beckett by surprise with her abrupt reversal.
"What do you mean?" Beckett asks, trying to figure out how Lanie somehow lapped her in the conversation.
Her friend laughs, then holds up the dessert menu. "Visual aide, remember?" she laughs. "I was going to start this conversation by asking how you can be so decisive in other aspects of your life," she says while comically stabbing her finger at the menu as if she were Beckett honing in instantly on her selection, "when you seem to drift in your personal life. Maybe it's time to get a man menu," she cackles, enjoying the thought. "Then you'll know what to do. Or maybe who to do," she says lasciviously, getting an eye roll in return. "I'd like a number six, please, extra shoulders and hold the boxers," she hoots, drawing interested looks from the ladies at the next table.
"I don't need a menu," Beckett admits, blushing. "I just need the time to make sure I'm ready to order."
"That's probably a good idea," Lanie agrees, letting her friend off the hook. "Mostly. Curious timing, though, isn't it? Josh's back in four to six weeks, and you're going to have lunch with Castle in what – five weeks?"
"Coincidence," Beckett answers, looking shy.
"Maybe," Lanie allows. "Though I think we know someone else who might call it fate."
A/N: Posting earlier than expected again. We'll see when the next chapter goes up – certainly within the next week, but the exact day is TBD. My warranty expired, so I go under the knife later this week. Nothing too serious, but if I disappear, just assume I'm hiding out in a cabin in upstate New York to heal. I'll call.
For those of you who've asked, yes, Beckett and Castle will be in the same scene again before late April. Next chapter, in fact… After that, we'll see. I'm thinking about revamping the outline for the later chapters, but not until late April, their time.
Honor and respect to those who Served.
