Thank you all for the continued interest in this story. Every single one of your comments and favs and follows makes my day! I'm really glad people a liking this story so much. I do apologize for the typos and errors, I'm writing and posting as fast as I can.
Instead of her long-awaited weekend with Castle, Beckett spent Friday night in an unmarked car with Hendricks parked outside a brownstone building. McCord and Richmond were hiding around the corner in a surveillance van camouflaged as a carpet cleaning company.
They were currently waiting for Jessica Flinn, former senior analyst at Booz Allen Hamilton, who had dropped off the face of the earth three months ago, after she'd been let go. Initially, Flinn had refused to accept her severance package and threatened to sue the company for wrongful termination of contract. Two days later she disappeared, never to be heard again. Through friends and casual acquaintances they were able to track down a former boyfriend in Richmond, Virginia, where she might have gone into hiding. Therefore, Rachel had packed up Rookie and his toys in the surveillance van earlier in the afternoon to make the two-hour trip to the capital of Virginia. Matt and Kate trailed behind them in the dark sedan and parked on the opposite street side in the quiet residential neighborhood where Jessica Flinn presumably waited for the storm to blow over. That was four hours ago and no one had entered or left the building.
Kate's phone started ringing and she quickly pulled the device out of her back pocket to decline the call. Before she could put it on silent, a series of loud pings resonated through the car, indicating a couple of new text messages.
"Sorry," Beckett smiled an apology and opened her texts.
"That your fiancé?"
Her what? She looked at Matt dumbfounded for a split second before she recalled the ring that adorned her left hand now. She'd been wearing it ever since Castle slipped it on her ring finger in the park, almost over a month ago… well except for the few weeks in Quantico, when she was wrestling through mud and obstacle courses. It still felt so new and Kate hadn't fully processed the fundamental changes to her life she'd made in the past few months. She considered lying to Matt for a brief moment but then realized they'd find out about her engagement after the book launch party and he'd already seen the ring anyway. And it's not like she was hiding it from anyone, she'd just prefer they didn't know who her fiancé was yet.
"Uhh, yes."
"Must be hard," Matt commented.
"Why?"
"You here, he back in New York."
"What makes you think? He's actually moving to DC with me."
"I just assumed, since you haven't introduced us yet."
Beckett let out a humorless laugh, "You mean like you introduced me to your girlfriends."
"Unfortunately there's no one to introduce since that position is currently vacant, though if you want to volunteer…"
"Engaged, remember?" Beckett cut him off, holding up her ring finger. "Is that why you're trying so hard? You want to see if you can show the new girl a good time while she's pining away for her guy who stayed behind?"
"What? No." Matt shook his head. "I just want to torture Rookie a little bit. See if I can get you out on a date before him."
"Good to know I don't get a say in who gets to date me. Listen carefully, because I'm only going to say this once. Just because we're working together, we're not going to be BFFs. We haven't even been working together for a week, there'll be no after work drinks huddled around a bar where you get to make fun of me and my boyfriend. And for the record, I am very happy in the relationship I'm in right now. And even if I were single, I wouldn't date you if you were the last man on earth."
"Ouch, you wound me, Nikki. Was it something I said?"
"You just answered your own question." Kate huffed.
"So who's the lucky guy?" Matt asked unperturbed.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Kate gave him a saccharine smile.
"Oh come on, Beckett, we're on the same team. Throw a guy a bone. What's his name? At least let me know my competition."
Beckett's only reply was her famous eye-roll. Matt Hendricks must suffer from selective hearing syndrome. Her phone started vibrating in her hand. She didn't even have to look to know it was Castle again. Unfortunately an oncoming car bathed the interior of their sedan in just enough light for Hendricks to make out Castle's face and name on her display, before she pressed him away.
Matt raised an eyebrow looking at Kate with renewed interest, but she didn't notice, since she was busy declining his call.
"You should take it." Hendricks said.
"What?" Kate's head snapped up when she noticed the change in tone from her new partner. The teasing was gone and replaced by something she couldn't quite pinpoint. A certain somberness and... comprehension?
"Seriously. Go ahead make that call."
She wasn't going to talk to Rick with Hendricks eavesdropping beside her. She could only imagine what he would do if he found out she was marrying Richard Castle.
"At least send him a text saying you're alright and on a stake out. No sense in making him worry. Poor guy's probably half sick by now because you've gone incommunicado." There was something in Hendricks' voice that gave Kate the distinct feeling Matt knew what he was talking about. Maybe she'd pegged him wrong. He may not have a current girlfriend but he was probably speaking from experience. Forming relationships while a cop in New York was tough enough, she could only imagine what it must be like to date when you work for the feds. Every couple of months a new assignment would take you halfway across the country and communication would essentially be cut off as long as the case was hot.
Beckett frowned at Matt, not knowing what to say. Why was he being so nice to her all of a sudden? Her phone started ringing in her hand again.
"Go ahead, take it. I'm not even here." He nodded at her encouragingly. "I promise I won't tease you about your fiancé, Nikki, as long as you don't go all lovey-dovey on me."
"Hey," Beckett finally accepted the call with another one of her trademark eye-rolls and greeted her fiancé. She'd keep it short and sweet, avoid names and other personal references and keep Matt as much in the dark about her love life as possible.
"Hey! Yes, my name is Richard Castle and I'd like to file a missing persons report. I'm looking for my fiancée; she's a beautiful, gorgeous brunette, about 5 feet 9, with legs that go on forever. At first I thought she was just busy at work, and you have to wait 24 hours before you can file an official report anyway, then I thought she was just ignoring my calls but now it's been three days and I'm starting to worry she's decomposing in a hidden alcove at one of your countless memorials in your beautiful city."
"Yeah, sorry about that."
"What's going on, Kate? You never have time to talk. I left you like a hundred messages. You never pick up the phone anymore when I call. Is this how it's going to be from now on?"
"I said I'm sorry. I can't really talk right now," Kate was careful to leave out Castle's name, which was already on the tip of her tongue, "I'm on a stake out."
"With whom? Fan girl?"
"Nope", Kate glanced at Hendricks in the driver's seat next to her, "with Squirrel."
Matt snapped his head around and glared at her. She shrugged at him as if to say, 'What? Long as you keep calling me Nikki, I keep calling you Squirrel.'
"What? Who?"
Rick's voice brought her attention back to the phone call. "Hendricks. Long story, I'll tell you when I see you next."
"The guy who keeps calling you Nikki?"
"Uh-huh."
"Let me talk to him."
"What? No!" Kate objected vociferously, "Why'd you want to do that?"
"Because he's on a stake out with you, and I'm your old partner, so I know a little bit about keeping you safe and I want him to know, partner to partner, that if anything happens to you, he's got me to answer to."
"Yeah, so not gonna happen."
"Ok. Well at least that explains why you're not here to pick me up."
"Huh?"
"It's Friday." Castle said as if that explained everything.
"So?"
"So, I was hoping for a nice little welcome when I got off the plane but since you're apparently at a stake out, I guess I'll just catch a cab to the hotel. I texted you the flight details this morning, I shouldn't be surprised though, seeing as you didn't respond to any of my texts, calls or e-mails this week."
"Oh no! Rick, I'm so sorry. I completely forgot about that!"
"So I noticed."
"I'm so sorry, I should have called to let you know I can't do this weekend. We caught this really high profile case and it's all hands on deck until we catch the guy."
Castled sighed heavily into his phone, "Will I at least see you this weekend?"
"I don't know," Kate sighed, too. "Things have been just crazy this week. Ever since the news leak, we've been working around the clock to find out whoever is behind the NSA security breach."
"You're kidding, you're working on that case?" Castle's voice filled with excitement. "Seriously?"
"Seriously. But you know I can't talk about cases with you anymore."
"I know but this is so cool. My fiancé is hunting the traitor-turned-folk-hero everyone is talking about."
Kate rolled her eyes. "I'm glad you take the news that we can't spend the weekend together so well."
"Yes, no, wait. It's not like that. Of course, I'm upset I won't get to see you. Do you want me to fly back to New York?"
Kate pondered her decision for a minute. It wasn't really fair to have him cooped up in the hotel suite waiting to see her for the fifteen minutes it would take her to shower and change clothes.
"I don't know. When do you have to be back?"
"Actually, I don't have to be back until Thursday. I thought maybe you could take next Friday off and fly back with me, attend the party on Saturday and then come back Sunday night. But if you have to work because of this security leak, I'd understand."
"We'll see. I really do hope we catch the guy before next Saturday or we might all be out of a job due to incompetence." That reminded Kate that with all the chaos this week, she hadn't even gotten a chance to talk to Rachel about next Saturday.
"Hey, if anyone can sniff out that guy's whereabouts it's you."
"Thank you for your vote of confidence but we've been doing background checks on all former employees who might hold a grudge and it's one dead end after another."
"What makes you think it's a former employee? That's so cliché. If I wrote the story, I'd create a modern day anti-hero. Small guy, caught in the big wheels of government, discovers how the government he's sworn to protect spies on its own citizens on a grand scale, violating people's privacy 'for their own good'."
Kate continued, "He keeps silent as long as he can but eventually his conscience wins out and he goes public with what he knows. But that's insane, he must know that they'll come after him and prosecute him to the full extent of the law."
"Right, so he plans every little detail long in advance. He gathers as much evidence as he can, then quietly leaves with nobody none the wiser. Goes on vacation or quits his job amicably. Waits a few days to make sure the coast is clear. The point is the less attention he draws to himself the better."
"Right because he wants out of the country. Preferably somewhere with no extradition treaty to the US where he might be court martialed and the death penalty is looming over his head. He may very well be a former employee but he'd have left on his own terms, we're looking in the wrong direction."
Kate glanced at Hendricks to check if he'd been listening in on her conversation. Matt winced apologetically at her and nodded, already reaching for his phone to call Rachel. Their investigation may have just finally gotten on track.
"Run down the last known travel itineraries of the journalists from The Guardian who broke the story. I remember their background check showed recent overseas travel. I bet they met with the traitor in person. Doing it over Skype or even an encrypted line would have been too high a risk."
Matt nodded, "Already on it. Rachel already has Richmond cross-referencing employee records with flight manifests to see if any names pop for recent overseas travel in the last few weeks."
"You have to go." Castle sighed as the same time as Kate said, "Gotta go."
"Be safe, Kate. I love you." Castle crooned into the speaker and made Kate smile.
She lowered her head and spoke quietly into the phone, "Always."
