Close Encounters 0
He slept four hours at a place in the city that he'd appropriated last year but had never really managed to put his stamp on. It still looked sterile, but it served its purpose. He'd pissed off his father back then and maybe it'd been a stupid fit of temper, but he'd taken the apartment as his own and hadn't given the keys back.
Black had said nothing about it. Castle kept the place, held on to it because he needed it.
A place apart.
The last few years, actually, Castle had been restless. Up to four a.m. himself, if he was being honest. Working counter-intelligence for the CIA and chasing spies around the world used to put him straight out at night; he pushed himself to the breaking point but he never broke.
Until recently.
He wasn't breaking yet, but he felt it looming.
Castle stopped in at the cafe across from the 12th precinct and found Eastman hunkered down with coffee, texting his wife from his secure phone. Eastman startled, a little guiltily, and Castle only laughed and shook his head.
"Hey man, I know you can't stay away from her for-"
Eastman punched his shoulder and sat back in his cafe chair, but he didn't put his phone away. "I love my wife. You would too."
"Love your wife? Man, her cinnamon rolls alone-"
"Uh-huh. Wait till it happens to you."
He grinned but the image that rose up before him was as bleak and sterile as that apartment he'd slept in today. "Don't worry, won't happen. At least one of us needs to be a fine, fighting machine."
"It is a sad little world you live in. Come in from the cold, Agent Castle. Mighty fine inside."
He gave Eastman a dark look and rested his elbows on the table. "Fill me in on the subject."
"Oh, she's the subject now? Yesterday she was Beckett." Eastman knocked his elbow with a cup of still-warm coffee in a to-go cup. "Take it."
He wrapped his fingers around the cup and felt the hunch in his shoulders ease a little; he sipped the coffee and the case settled back on him. "She's the subject. And this is what we do."
Eastman gave him a sidelong look but he nodded. "This is what we do."
It was a taco bar this time; she must have called ahead because she was in and out in moments, loaded down again. She volunteered for the lunch runs, didn't she?
He noted the time and didn't follow her back to the precinct; he stood in the shade of an awning and watched her walk down the block with the bags in one hand and her phone pulled out, thumb scrolling.
He felt his time wearing out with her. He wanted more than sighting her across the binoculars in a van parked outside her apartment, more than following her down the sidewalk and watching the sway of her hips. He told himself it was because of the case, that the Chinese spy was of the most urgent importance, but he knew the truth of it.
He wanted her. Period.
At least he was man enough to admit it - if only to himself. He wanted to walk side by side with her on these lunch runs she took to clear her head, wanted to be the one she bounced ideas off of instead of her introspection and her remoteness. He wanted to try to make her smile for once, and he couldn't even remember the last he'd smiled himself.
He cracked his neck, rolling his head around, and then he headed for the Chinese consulate once more, determined to stop thinking about her. The guys already had the 12th covered, and he probably only had their help for the next 48 hours. After that, he'd be baby-sitting her alone, so he had better take his opportunities where he could.
He found his hand on his phone and pressing speed dial before he could stop himself and then Eastman was chuckling in his ear.
"We got her, man. Cool your jets."
He sighed and picked up his pace. "I got a problem, Eastman."
The response was sharp and immediate. "What's wrong? I can be on you in ten-"
"No. Not a shadow," he grunted. "Her. I got a problem with her."
"The subject? I thought you said she was good to go. Solid. We-"
"No, not - it's not about the job. Or well, it's about being more than the job."
"Are you serious right now? You like her? You're always the one getting into trouble with these women, Castle. You can't keep doing this. First Ireland, and recently - Sophia."
He growled and clenched his hand around the phone. "Don't."
"You know what I thought about her-"
"Don't. Not another word."
There was silence on the phone but Castle wouldn't relent. Not on this. The woman had been a traitor and a double agent, and she'd been trained to fuck him. That was all it had been. She'd fucked him, and then just because it might get her higher security clearance, she'd fucked his father as well.
Both of them knowing full well-
"Castle."
He grit his teeth and saw the subway station up ahead, decided to turn the conversation back to tried and true humor. "Thanks, Eastman. That about did it. Bring up Turner and my libido melts away."
"No problem. Here for ya, man."
He ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket but the problem was, this wasn't about his libido. He was attracted to her, hell yes and who wouldn't be?, but he wanted her in a way that was more than Turner had ever inspired. He wanted to bring her cinnamon rolls and coffee, wanted to know exactly how her mind worked and what theories she'd come up with, wanted to touch the skin at the back of her neck when she was vulnerable and had pulled her hair up and was ready for bed, wanted to be the one she came to first. He wanted - quite simply, tragically - her, wanted her in a forever way.
You don't even know her, Richard.
When the Chinese consulate was quiet and there was only the rush of traffic over the parabolic mic, when the late afternoon sunlight stretched golden and touched along the skyscrapers and shined like precious treasure, he ached.
He ached.
He had to see her.
The light and the sudden cool warmth of the sun across her cheeks, the way her hair shimmered only in his imagination, but he wanted to see it. To know. He was gone; he was so far gone; he didn't even care.
The consulate was dead as the grave and he gave up his position in the van to a guy hungry for more time in the field anyway - Reynolds, he thought the name was - and he got out on the sidewalk and took a breath of the Sunday in New York feel of the day.
It was coming to a close, all of it, and he felt that if he didn't do something soon, he'd miss it. He'd miss all of it, and he didn't even know what it was.
Something to do with her though.
He caught up with her at the Science Center, exiting the office building with a frown marring her face. Her hair was in layered waves around her shoulders and he wanted the right to curl his fist in it and tilt her head back to meet him.
Only with her in those shoes, he might not have to. She'd come up right at his eye level practically and her chest would brush his and he'd loop his arms around her waist to press her pelvis against his, that lovely feeling of having a woman close.
He couldn't remember the last time that was what he wanted. An embrace? Damn, she was messing with his head.
Agent Castle checked in with the surveillance team and took over the detail, sending the two agents on ahead to the precinct. Even though it was approaching four, he knew she'd be back there, unable to rest, needing to get right back to it.
He kept his car idling at the curb a block from where she stood with two other male detectives - Esposito and Ryan, her own team - and he watched her confer with them for a moment. He saw her frustration clearly and he knew it was because his guys had gone in and cleared out the deceased's office, taken even the furniture.
He'd done it strategically, knowing she'd know what it meant: tread carefully, there's more here than you think.
As a cautionary warning, it relied pretty heavily on her grit and determination to see this through despite the obstacles he was throwing in her path. And by the look on her face, she'd decided to buckle down and plow ahead, her grimace more indicative of annoyance than fear.
He knew she'd take it as a challenge, knew she'd feel his presence behind the move.
Well, no. Not him specifically - how could she know anything about him? But the government agent, the man in black.
He watched her, expecting to follow her back to the 12th and get started, but instead she gave her keys to the Latin detective and stuffed her hands in her jacket pockets. She turned for the sidewalk and began striding off, working out that frustration in every strong line of her step.
He watched the two detectives take the car and drive away. He watched her disappear into the sun.
She had surprised him. Of course she had; this woman wasn't like any other woman he'd met before. Not that they'd even met, really, but now she was taking her time back to the 12th, sending her team on ahead of her to get the ball rolling, while she. . .walked.
He cut off his engine and followed.
He had no idea where she was going. He'd thought she was taking a walk to clear her head, think about the strange disappearance of office furniture, but instead she had purpose to her steps. She had a place in mind.
Castle bit the bullet and stepped onto the same subway car as Beckett, watching her push her hair behind her ear and stand with her hip propped up against a bar. He stood as well, ready to get off at the other end of the car just in case.
She had her phone out, checking messages or playing a game - did she do that? Had she an online profile where she and that medical examiner friend of hers played Words on their phones? Or some other game, maybe the Zombies thing that he'd seen the boy in Shanghai playing.
He came up on his toes to see over the head of the businessmen between them and glanced at her screen.
Just her messages.
He wished, strangely, that she was playing a game, one he could sign on to and invent a name, seek her out and play anonymously. Trade words back and forth across a virtual board.
She lifted her head and her eyes caught his.
He gave her an appreciative quirk of his lips and obviously checked her out; immediately her eyes grew dull and dropped away, her disinterest loud and clear, dismissing him.
He wondered if she did that a lot. Did she feel his eyes and assume it was another man hitting on her? He was suddenly certain she lived her life being careful of the messages she sent with her body and her eyes, shutting men down the moment they approached.
Good. No one else could have her.
She stayed standing even though seats became available, her body swaying in time to the car on the tracks, and he kept his back half turned to her, watching her reflection in the scuffed windows as they hurtled underground.
She was pretty. Not just model gorgeous with those legs and perfect hair and severe cheekbones. But at this moment with her hair tucked back into a rubber band and her teeth biting her lower lip and her fingers cradling her phone, she was pretty. Not quite girl next door, never would be, but something called out in the softness of her jaw as her head tilted down, the vulnerable line of her neck.
She put her phone away after a few stops, tucking it into her jacket pocket, and he saw her getting ready to disembark, the firmer line of her shoulders, the wider stance, preparation in her frame. She pulled the rubber band out of her hair and shook it a little, causing more than just Castle's head to turn, but she was oblivious.
He leaned casually against the pole and waited for the subway train to hiss to a stop at the platform, noted the name of it. Still no idea where she was headed, but she got off first, the crowd parting for her as people would when someone with Beckett's self-possession came upon them.
He kept back, letting himself be lost in the crowd, confident that even if she saw him again, she'd dismiss him once more. A handsome face seen and not seen at the same time.
She had her hands in her jacket pockets as she ascended the subway steps, coming out into the setting sun's diffuse light, her head turning right and left as she merged with foot traffic. Castle entered the fray as well, the rush hour pedestrians going fast and furious, and he let the crowd take him along at their own pace, keeping about a block behind her.
She never even turned around.
When she got to where she was going, he startled to a stop, getting knocked from behind by an irritated man quick-stepping around him. Castle was riveted, caught off-guard by the location but more so by Kate. Her face was masked and shadowed by the stone arch of the cemetery, her body both defensive and grief-stricken at the same time.
And then she stepped through.
It was harder like this, tailing her without her noticing, and he loitered at the edge of the cemetery's fence and followed her with his eyes instead.
How had he missed this?
She looked defeated.
She changed the moment she stepped across the brown grass, her arms up against her chest, her head down, elbows tucked into her ribs. From behind, he could only see the dark slash of her body as she arrowed straight for a cluster of fresh granite, but the waver in her heels told him the ground was muddy and soft and she was just broken enough to let it throw her off-balance.
He had to battle back the fierce urge to go to her, put his fingers at one of those tight elbows to give her just enough support to keep going.
He couldn't. He couldn't; it wasn't his place and she'd never take it from him and she was the subject. This was a job and the nation's security depended upon him maintaining that line between them.
But even as she knelt before a stone, her fingers clutching at her throat and one hand coming out to press against the marker, he promised himself - he promised her - one day.
One day, they would come back here, and he'd be everything she needed to make that walk across the grass.
He watched her grieve for only four minutes before he turned his back and walked across the street and into a bar, settling down heavily at a well-lit booth where he could still see the street and memorial park. Since it wasn't his place - not yet, not yet - he would leave her this. For now. He would respect her privacy in this.
Castle nursed a beer without really tasting it, his fingers still against the amber bottle, his eyes intent on the entrance to the cemetery. He paid for his beer but stayed where he was even as the bar began to fill with after-work patrons.
He imagined her knees against the brown grass, the dip of her bowed head, strands of hair curling at her ears. Whatever she'd been clutching around her neck - had it been a ring? He could picture the stone and the exact spot where she was even now giving over into grief, and he wondered what he'd looked like.
Her fiance? Husband? Or her boyfriend and she'd found the engagement ring in a pocket of his dress pants one night when she'd finally built up enough strength to go through his clothes, the scent of him washing over her with every fold of a shirt into the box marked for Goodwill.
Castle should've known this. He should've found this already, been prepared for this. Damn it. She was on her knees in a cemetery and this was shit he should have known.
Who the fuck was it? Who had hurt her so badly that the moment she walked that grass, she'd collapsed in on herself?
He refused to pull out his phone and send the team scrambling for that information because that had been his job - his job to find out her background before making her a target - and he'd already fucked it up by falling in love with her-
No.
Castle groaned and rubbed his eyes, jerked his head up once more to be sure he didn't miss her coming out.
No.
This was infatuation, certainly, but it was a result of brushing up against her life in such an intimate manner. He was a professional stalker is what he was; nothing more.
He timed her at twenty minutes, which must have felt like ages inside that wrought iron fence, and also no time at all when it came to all she was leaving behind. Castle knew he'd felt each and every single second of those minutes.
Now it was time to find out who drew her to that cemetery and why her fingers were blanched around a single diamond solitaire.