Note: This fic was started during the summer hiatus, so the characters in this story are nothing like the ones developed for season six. My life is so crazy busy right now, it seriously interferes with working on my multi-chapter fics. As I've mentioned before, I will never abandon a story - and if I did, I would post a disclaimer at the beginning. I just have a terrible flaw: I come up with these really long story lines that sometimes require either lots of research, for which I don't have time, or just lots of planning so all the plots line up. My apologies to everyone who has been waiting for an update on this one. It's probably going to be a while until there's a new chapter on this story. If you're still following and reading this story, I'm all the more humbled by your continued interest.
Monday morning Kate walked into the office, officially cleared in the shooting and back on duty. As she strode purposely past the row of cubicles, she wondered whether Rachel was going to put her on desk duty or find some other form of disciplinary action for breaking the rules.
Beckett stopped dead in her tracks, when she hit her team's row and found McCord, Hendricks and Richmond reading books at their desks. She pulled out her phone to take a picture and sent the snapshot to Castle. They all were reading the same book. And not just any book.
"Really, guys!" She exclaimed, and all three of them looked up at her innocently. "Don't you have anything better to do?"
"Actually, no," Matt explained and went back to reading.
"What about Snowden?" Kate's phone vibrated and she checked the message from Castle: Justifiable homicide? Googling places to hide bodies in DC right now.
"Legal department," McCord shrugged her shoulders. "With Snowden out of the country it's now between the lawyers and diplomats."
"Don't we have paperwork to fill out?" Beckett looked at them astonished. Oh this was already so much better than at the NYPD.
"Oh we don't, but you do," Rachel gave a nod to Beckett's desk where a small pile of documents lay waiting. Kate growled inwardly and flared her nose. She should have known Rachel would discipline her for going after the suspect alone. Taking the punishment – and the Heat Wave hazing – in stride, Kate sat down at her desk and began filling out forms and signing reports.
"She felt the muscles of his abdomen," Beckett heard Hendricks voice reading a passage from Heat Wave out loud, "flex hard against her as he curled his head upward, nibbling the soft flesh where her neck met her collarbone."
She rolled her eyes at him but Matt continued reading unperturbed. "Nikki stirred and began to unbutton his shirt. Rook was making a project out of her blouse button so she rose up, straddled him on both knees and ripped the blouse open, hearing her buttons skitter against the hardwood floor near the baseboard." Matt stopped and made a show out of letting his eyes run up and down Kate's blouse and licking his lips salaciously.
Beckett just shook her head at him and focused on the witness statement in front of her. Determined no to let them know how much their Nikki Heat hazing was actually grating on her nerves, she decided to ignore them. If she showed no reaction, then maybe it would stop sooner.
Kate had never appreciated Ryan and Esposito's support over the years more than at this moment. Sure, there had been good-natured ribbing about Castle shadowing her and basing a character on her, but their jokes had never been explicitly at her expense. And even after she and Castle had hooked up, they'd accepted that relationship like any other and kept the innuendos down to a minimum.
Rachel picked up where Matt left off. "With one hand, Rook unhooked the front clasp of her bra. Nikki shook her arms out of it and made a frenzied dive onto him."
Rachel grinned and wiggled her eyebrows at Kate, who sent her a glare that said, 'Et tu, Brute?'
"Their wet skin made a slap as her chest landed on his. She reached down and unhooked his belt. Then undid his zipper. Nikki kissed him again and whispered, 'I keep protection in the nightstand.'" McCord paused, glancing at her for good measure.
Matt took over Rook's role and continued, "'You won't need a gun,' he said. 'I'll be a perfect gentleman.'"
He and Rachel were clearly enjoying trading lines between them way too much for Kate's liking. She tried to blend out Rachel's voice as she read on, "'You'd better be not.' And she pounced on him, her heart pounding high in her chest with excitement and tension."
Beckett could feel her cheeks blush with embarrassment anyway. Of course, they would choose the Tequila sex scene for their little public reading. She turned around to see if any of the other agents were listening in, but thankfully everyone else was actually working. She was gonna kill Castle for writing that scene. But first she was going to kill them for reciting it loud enough for the entire floor to hear. Kate turned to Richmond, expecting him to join Rachel and Matt in their latest hazing session, but the poor kid fidgeted uncomfortably and nervously in his chair. His face was an even darker shade of red than Beckett assumed hers was. Rookie was practically looking anywhere but her, torn between avoiding her eyes and mentally undressing her. Kate's mouth opened to say something, but words failed her.
"Seriously?" She turned back to Hendricks and McCord. "That's the best you can come up with?" Beckett schooled them with a death glare, pretending their teasing rolled right off her back. "Amateurs!" Kate huffed indignantly.
She heard Richmond clearing his throat to excuse himself – no doubt to make a beeline to the men's room with his copy of Heat Wave strategically placed in front of his crotch. Kate rolled her eyes and shook her head disappointedly at her new team members.
"So?" Matt looked at her with a devilish grin.
"So what?" Kate's voice was laced with irritation.
"Is Richard Castle the perfect gentleman?" He asked, watching her reaction carefully. He didn't let on that he knew the secret identity of Kate's fiancé but that didn't mean he couldn't tease the hell out of Beckett until she shared said information with the rest of the class. That was part of the reason he'd picked that particular scene to read. To see her reaction. To see her squirm and try to talk herself out of it.
"Why don't I give you his number so you can ask him out and find out yourself?" Kate shot back.
"Ouch," Rachel made a hissing sound, "Burn." She waved her fingers at Matt, who scowled. That was not the reaction he'd expected. Damm, that girl could think on her feet. She hadn't even batted an eyelash. Beckett hadn't shown a single sign that the sex scene in the book was anything else but a pure figment of Richard Castle's imagination.
"You know, I think I'll take these to the break room and have a coffee while I finish. If you decide to act like mature adults again, you know where to find me when we catch a new case." Beckett grabbed a pile of folders and left a speechless McCord and a guilty looking Hendricks behind.
Maybe they'd gone too far and overdone it. With Beckett pulled in for her interview about the shooting, they'd lingered on after the debriefing. Just in case. McCord was mad that Beckett had tried to play hero, but she wasn't going to throw her under the bus. It was a clean shooting and she and the boys would back her up no matter what. While they were waiting, Rookie had regaled them with stories he'd heard about Beckett at the NYPD. Apparently one involved a tiger and the theft of a corpse straight out of the coroner's van. Rachel had looked at Richmond skeptically, but he had insisted that it was true and Castle even used it in his second novel.
That's when they'd come up with the idea to show up with a Nikki Heat novel in the morning to tease Beckett. When Matt saw that they had all chosen Heat Wave independently of each other, he thought it would be funny to read out passages, when she arrived. They'd spent the few minutes before Kate's arrival thumbing through pages, until Richmond made an off-handed comment that they could always read the sex scene. Rachel and Matt perked up in their chairs with renewed interest in their reading material. There was a sex scene? Why had no one told them about that?
0~0~0~0~0
With no new case, Beckett actually got to go home early after she'd finished all the paperwork. At some point Rookie had joined her in the conference room, helping her, obviously feeling guilty for what they'd done to her. Kate didn't say anything and they silently filled out and signed reports together until lunch. When she returned from her lunch break, the stack of files was gone and she found McCord, Richmond and Hendricks all doing their share. She clocked out at 4.30pm.
Rick took Kate out shopping in Georgetown for a dress in the evening.
"You don't have to buy me a dress, every time I accompany you to one of our events," Kate told him as they strolled around Georgetown window-shopping.
"I need to know what you'll wear to the party, so I can match my outfit."
Right, because her boyfriend was a metrosexual who sometimes spent more time styling his hair than she did in the morning. "What if I can't find anything? I honestly haven't seen a single dress that caught my attention so far."
"We'll just keep looking. And there's always New York." He shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sure we'll find you something nice."
Shortly before sunset, they stumbled upon a nice restaurant by the river that wasn't overrun with tourists and sat down for dinner.
"I talked to Paula. She's set up four exclusives after the press conference."
"That sounds manageable. I haven't had a chance to talk to Rachel about the weekend. I think she's still a little pissed about the incident."
"That was pretty stupid of you, Kate. You could've gotten killed." He reminded her.
"I didn't see that he had a gun, ok?" She gave him an irritated look. "I thought we covered that last night."
"Don't look at me like that. I'm allowed to get upset over things like that now that I'm going to be your husband." Rick defended himself. "I'd really like for this wedding to be my last one."
She put her hand over his.
"It's hard for me, Beckett… sitting around, waiting for you to come home. When I was with you on cases, it was different because I was there with you right in the thick of it. I didn't really have time to think about the danger we were exposing ourselves to. Besides, I was always there to save your life."
Kate snorted but Rick didn't let that interrupt him. "Now I don't know where you are or what you do all day and my writer's imagination comes up with one scenario after another, one worse than the other, of what could go wrong."
"I love you, Castle," Beckett looked into his eyes deeply, her thumb softly stroking the back of his hand, "I'm not going to leave you. I'm planning on living a very, very long life with you."
"But you can't be sure." He shook his head. "No one, no suspect, no murderer, no terrorist is worth losing your life over going after them. Not even Bracken, Kate. I want you, I need you to promise me that you will tamper down your ambitions and desire to impress everyone and never ever go anywhere without the proper back up."
"I promise", she whispered and gave him a chaste kiss.
"So when do I get to meet your new colleagues?"
"When hell freezes over."
"We could get together for dinner some time this week," Rick continued unperturbed.
"You're not going to meet them. That's all that I need, can you imagine what they'd do if they found out you and I are sleeping together?"
"You still haven't told them about us?"
"They were reading the Tequila scene this morning, Castle. Out loud. For the entire floor to hear."
Rick gaped at her, "They didn't! I'm so sorry, Kate. I couldn't see any page numbers on the photo you sent me. Just that they were reading Heat Wave."
"It's okay, at least I think that was the highlight. I can't think of anything more embarrassing they could do. At least, I hope so."
"After Saturday they'll know." Rick mused.
"I know." Kate sighed. "And I dread already all the jokes that'll be flying around the bullpen Monday morning. But at least I won't have to tell them in person."
"Do you still want to do it? I mean the interviews. I'd understand… given the circumstances."
"No, Rick. Maybe it'll be good to just get it out there. Let my pesky colleagues make their juvenile jokes and let the press print their lies. They'll lose their interest soon enough. We're really not all that interesting."
"What if they won't?"
"Then I'll call in a favor at the twelfth and have them arrest Lindsay Lohan. That should keep the paps busy for a while."
"You wouldn't." Rick laughed out loud.
Kate shrugged her shoulders, "A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do."
"Have I ever told you how hot you are when you abuse your authority?" Castle leaned over the table.
"Want a sample?" Kate leaned in as well, their faces so close their lips were almost touching, when she spoke.
"Did they give you new cuffs?" Rick's eyes flashed with arousal.
"Ah-huh."
"I can't remember… does our hotel bed work with cuffs?" He murmured.
"Care to find out?" Kate glanced around to make sure no one was listening in on their conversation.
0~0~0~0~0
"They left me." Rick spoke into the silence of the bedroom. He spooned Kate from behind, running his fingers lightly up and down the naked skin on her arms.
"Hm?" Beckett moaned and pressed her back into his chest. Her whole body felt like jello after their latest round of lovemaking and her mind had yet to return fully to the real world.
"Meredith and Gina. You wanted to know why my previous marriages didn't work out. All my wives left me."
Kate inhaled deeply, before she turned around in his arms. She cupped his cheek and stroked her thumb over the rough stubble that was manifesting itself as his five o'clock shadow. She wanted to crack a joke to lighten the mood, but one look into his eyes, and she could tell how deeply hurt he still was by what he was going to share with her. So she kept silent and waited him out.
"The truth is, Beckett, I should have never married Gina or Meredith. I…" he trailed off, unsure how to explain. "I wanted to do the right thing you know? Both times. Do right by Alexis, you know? Give her a stable home, a proper family – everything I never had."
Kate nodded.
"I was so scared when Meredith told me. Not my best moment. I reacted poorly. I mean we were so young and I'd never intended for things to become so serious. I was still licking my wounds after Kyra, so Meredith was supposed to be fun and uncomplicated."
"And then she dropped this bombshell on you." Kate brushed a stray lock of hair that had fallen into his face back.
"I wasn't ready to be a father. We had a huge fight. Didn't speak for a few days. Then she called me out of the blue. She was crying." Rick paused as the memory washed over him. "She'd decided… she called me from the abortion clinic. She needed money and someone to escort her home."
Kate gasped.
"That moment I realized how much I actually wanted that baby. I told her to wait, drove over to the clinic, picked her up before she could have the procedure done, brought her home, sat her down and explained how I was going to take care of her and the baby." He paused again because he had to swallow the lump that had formed in his throat. "It worked for a while. After Alexis was born, Meredith couldn't even look at her. Labor was long and painful and the doctors reassured me that this was not entirely uncommon with first time mothers and only a phase. As weeks became months, it became clear that Meredith was not growing into her new role as mom naturally or easily."
Kate smiled, "Like you were willing to share Alexis with anyone anyway."
Castle grinned broadly. "Touché! Alexis was daddy's little girl from the very first moment. I had trouble putting her down for her naps. I just wanted to stare at her all the time. She was so beautiful and perfect. My perfect little angel." Their eyes met and Kate and Rick held each other's gaze for a moment.
"Did it come naturally to you?" Beckett asked. "Being a father I mean?"
"Yes and no. I mean, I loved being a dad from the moment they handed me that tiny little bundle in the hospital. But boy, did I make a lot of mistakes! Especially after Meredith left me and it was just Alexis and me."
"Can't have been easy being a single dad at such a young age."
"No, but in all honesty, it was harder with Meredith. She was never cut out to be a mother and I can't really fault her for that. She told me point blank at the abortion clinic but I talked her into keeping the baby. Much as I love Alexis and can't imagine my life without her, I should have never talked Meredith into something she wasn't ready for. Don't get me wrong, she loves Alexis in every way she can, but some days I worried she resented me for that. Especially because Alexis and I connected so quickly and deeply and she tried but she just didn't know how. We started to argue and fight a lot, made up, rinse and repeat. If we'd stayed together, it would've been more traumatizing for Alexis than breaking up."
"So she just left one day?"
"Not exactly, but I guess… I don't know… I've often thought if she did it on purpose, if she wanted me to be the bad guy and end our marriage…" When he saw the confused look on Kate's face, he realized he'd never told her what exactly had transpired in the last days of his marriage. "Alexis was three. I'd dropped her off at the kindergarten in the morning before a meeting with my publisher. It was flue season and half the staff was down for the count, so the meeting was cut short. I came home early, thinking I'd have the house to myself – back then we were living in a townhouse on the Upper East Side. Meredith was supposed to be at an audition."
Beckett furrowed her brows, an ill feeling forming in the pit of her stomach. "Oh no."
"Oh yeah," Castle gave a mirthless laugh. "She must have been auditioning for a western movie because I found her riding her director in reverse cowgirl in our bed."
"Castle, I'm so sorry." She ran her fingers through his hair. Apparently Meredith had left out the juiciest part regarding her break up with Rick. He simply shrugged his shoulders. "Wait, you said she left, you didn't dump her after that?"
He just sighed and rolled onto his back. Kate followed him and propped her head up, "Castle, no. Don't tell me you let her walk all over you! What the hell is wrong with you?" She slapped his chest softly.
"She's the mother of my child. Of course I was hurt and angry but somewhere deep down I hoped we would make things work."
"Much as I love you, Rick, if I catch you with one of our groupies in our bed, I'll kick you to the curb before you can say my name to apologize."
He rolled on his side and mirrored her position. "Duly noted."
"So what did you say?"
"Nothing. I was speechless, truly speechless for the first time in my life. I'd never seen it coming, so I just stormed out of the house, slamming every door behind me. I picked up Alexis from kindergarten and visited my mother. I asked her to babysit, since I didn't want Alexis to be anywhere near us for the fight I was going to have with Meredith. However by the time I got home Meredith had left. I didn't hear from her until a few days later, when she sent me divorce papers from LA. Apparently she was shacking up with her director in his Malibu beach house."
"That must have been hard on you."
"It could have been worse. Alexis couldn't understand, of course, and kept asking for her mother. I tried to explain as best as I could. Meredith's lack of maternal instincts proved to be a blessing in disguise, I'm sure it would have been harder on the kid, if she hadn't been more attached to me anyway. For a while Alexis and I did really well on our own. God, those years when she was in kindergarten and grade school were the best years of my life." He closed his eyes letting the nostalgia wash over him.
Kate smiled at the picture in front of her. Suddenly his eyes snapped back open, "But little girls don't stay little girls forever, and much as I wanted to be the center of the universe for Alexis, she was getting older and hitting that age where I became really worried about her, if she didn't have a strong female role model in her life."
"Flamboyant as she is, Castle, your mom's a pretty good role model to have around."
"Ah yeah, but back then she wasn't living with us. That was right before she met husband numero tres, who'd clean out her bank account a few years later. And you know when you're twelve years old there are some things you just don't want to talk about with your grandmother, much less your father."
"So you married Gina?"
Rick shrugged his shoulders. "It seemed to make sense at the time. We'd gone out a couple of times for business dinners after she became my editor. We'd been instantly attracted to each other… from the moment she tossed my manuscript back at me – covered in red ink. It looked like a crime scene, Beckett! She looked me straight in the eye and told me that quote 'If perhaps I'd spent my time a little less on philandering and more on writing, I might actually come up with a decent draft.' It didn't help that three weeks later I got arrested for borrowing that police horse in Central Park. I was so drunk I puked all over her shoes, when she came to bail me out. I figured it must be real love when she accepted my dinner invitation after that."
Kate laughed out loud.
"Anyway, Gina was on a mission to reform that playboy writer of hers. She said it made for good sales, the playboy image, but missed deadlines. She and my mother kept setting me up with what they deemed to be perfect girlfriends. I was miserable on all those dates. One night, after Gina read me the riot act again, I took her out for dinner as a peace offering. That was the first time we actually talked. You know like really talked. And we found out we actually had a lot in common, so one thing led to another..." He laughed softly. "Alexis really took to her, soon after we started seeing each other, so after I had the most awkward and embarrassing conversation of my life with my daughter about tampons and sanitary napkins, I decided she needed a female around. Someone she could look up to and confide and ask questions. I mean there's only so much you can research about tampons on the internet!" Rick shuddered.
"How long were you married?"
Rick raised his eyebrows, "Two years, give or take."
"How come she left you? She didn't betray you, too, did she?"
"No," he shook his head vehemently. "Gina's ruthless when it comes to business, but you've met her, in private she's a very kind person. She'd never do that to me after I told her about Meredith."
"So what happened between you two?"
"We couldn't keep our work life and private stuff separate. Never could, but it didn't become a problem until after she moved in. Until then we could just always go to our separate corners and cool off. Alexis and I have always had this really tight bond, and as naturally as Gina fit into our family, there were just those things we did that neither Alexis nor I really would let her be part of." He trailed off when he saw the deep frown on Kate's face. "What?"
"We work together."
"No. We worked together. Past tense. And even if we were still working together, it's different with you."
"How can you be so sure? For all you know we might have grown sick of each other if we'd been around each other 24/7."
"Well, we've been dating for over a year and so far I'm pretty thrilled every minute I get to spend with you. Why, are you getting tired of me?" He raised his eyebrows.
"No," Kate blushed with a smile, "I think we've established this weekend that I still can't keep my hand off you."
"For which I am very grateful by the way," he leaned in and kissed her softly. "It's different with you, Kate. It's… what I feel for you… I don't want to scare you but I'm so head over heels in love with you."
"Me too," she grinned and stole another kiss from him.
"You're the first woman I want to marry just because I want to be with her. I know this marriage will be different from the others and my last one because I'm doing this for myself. Well us… but you know what I mean. I'm glad Alexis is on board with everything, because it makes things so much easier, but you're the first woman I'm going to marry for me, because it makes me happy, because it's what I want and not what I think is the right thing to do or the best thing for…" The rest of his sentence was cut off, when Kate attacked his mouth hungrily with her lips. They kissed passionately, hand roaming over naked bodies, until their lungs ran out of air.
"It take it you approve of my reasons to marry you?" He gasped breathlessly.
"Very much," she grinned and gave him a quick kiss. She pulled back and gazed into his eyes until she was lost in their blue.
"Kate?"
"Hm?"
"What're you thinking?" He looked at her amused, "If you furrow your brows any more, you'll have a unibrow. Unibrows are very, very unsexy."
"Is that so?" she teased him. He nodded vigorously.
"Rick, I'm sorry about Vaughn."
"Huh?"
"Eric Vaughn. I'm sorry I didn't push him away before he tried to kiss me. I would never cheat on you, you know that right?"
"Of course," He moved around until he was propped up on his elbows. "Kate, I thought we've put this behind us."
"We have." She affirmed. "It's just… knowing what Meredith did to you…" She cast her eyes down ashamed.
"Hey now. We both made mistakes. I was so scared to define our relationship out of fear you'd run the other way if I asked too much that I didn't see how much you needed us to make a stronger commitment to each other." He glanced at the diamond ring gracing her left hand.
"But knowing what happened with Meredith… I understand now why you reacted the way you did."
"I trust you, Kate. I know you're not that kind of person."
"You didn't think Meredith was that kind of person, either."
"No, but… I don't know… I trust you in a way I've never trusted someone else before. We've been trusting each other with our lives long before we've trusted each other with our hearts, I guess that counts for something."
"I know I don't let you always in as much as you'd like, and I'm still working on that very, very hard, but I want us to work. So… ask Castle, if there's something you want to know, just ask instead of scratching and clawing. Like I did about your marriages. In case you haven't noticed, you've got your own secrets. You're not exactly an open book, either."
He opened his mouth to protest, "Well, if I'm not an open book, then you are one of those old medieval manuscripts with those seals that you need a key to open."
"You're missing the point, Castle. If we want this marriage to work, we've got to be honest with each other. We need to communicate our expectations and wishes better. We have to stop relying so much on subtext and gestures, we need to talk things out directly."
"You're right." He agreed.
"But?" She voiced the word he was thinking.
"But what if we push too far?"
"When we push too hard, we'll fight and we'll make up. It's like any learning curve."
"I don't want to lose you, Kate. I have this habit of putting my foot into my mouth and driving you crazy and poking and prodding you and…" She silenced him by putting her fingers across his lips.
"So far we've been doing fine mostly. I mean we're not a complete disaster, are we?"
"No."
"Good, then we'll figure things out. We'll just have to be patient."
A smile spread across his face, as understanding dawned on him. "I get it. You asked me about my marriages but you didn't push the issue right away."
She grinned, "No, because I knew you'd eventually talk to me about it. You just needed time to get your thoughts into order. Just like I sometimes need time to figure out how I truly feel about something when you ask me. Sometimes digging with a spoon instead of a shovel gets you further."
"Beckett?"
"Hm?"
"Leave the writing and metaphors to me, ok? That one was awful." He chuckled.
"You weren't complaining about my scenario for Hampton's Heat!" She protested meekly, her lips hovering above his.
"Fine, you can write the sex scenes, but only those."
"Suits me fine, I'm very good with those."
"Yes, you are, but you know what you're even better at with your hands and tongue?"
"Whatever could that be?" She teased him by almost brushing her mouth over his lips.
"Do we still have any ice cubes left?" He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
0~0~0~0~0
The next day Beckett's team was assigned to do a follow up investigation on Snowden's known contacts. Hendricks and Richmond drove out to meet with his parents, while Rachel and Kate interviewed his friends. They were just making their way back to the car, eating a falafel from a stand, when Beckett's phone rang. She checked the caller ID but didn't recognize the number.
"Beckett." She barked into her phone, throwing away the left over trash from her lunch, as she passed a trashcan on the sidewalk.
"Is this Agent Beckett? I am Captain Farramore from Metro Police, I'm calling on behalf of one Richard…" She heard paper rustling on the other end and her heart stopped beating. "…Edgar Castle?"
"Is he okay?" Kate blurted out and stopped walking. Oh God, please let him be okay.
"Oh yes, yes." The police captain reassured her right away and Kate breathed a sigh of relief. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the concerned look on her McCord's face who'd turned around when she realized Beckett was no longer keeping up with her. "There's been an incident though."
Kate rolled her eyes, "What did he do now?"
"So you do know him? Well, I'll be damned, I thought for sure he was making up another one of his stories."
"Sir, what kind of trouble is he in?" Kate asked cautiously. You never knew with Castle. "Did you arrest him?"
Rachel's head snapped up at the word arrest, which reminded Kate to lower her voice and turn her back on her new partner for a little more privacy.
"Well, it seems that your fiancé, or at least he claims so, broke a police seal and entered a crime scene without permission."
"Excuse me?" Kate gasped. "He did what?"
"Yes, Mr. Castle here apparently read about a murder in Georgetown in the papers this morning and did some investigating of his own – I'm using this word very loosely now, agent. Apparently the story doesn't make sense to him. He claims it's research for his next book. So he decided to 'help' my detectives, his words, not mine, when he found out a few details that didn't add up."
Kate sighed, "Of course he did. How bad is the damage he caused?"
"Surprisingly little. He wore gloves and seems to be familiar with police procedures, so the crime scene wasn't really contaminated. He did try to remove a few items from the suspect's apartment, though he claims he was on his way to bring them in as evidence, when a patrol car picked him up."
Kate rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Sir, what kind of trouble is he in? Are you going to charge him?"
"No, Agent Beckett. Though I didn't believe him at first and called the number he gave me out of curiosity, this is a courtesy call. You can come and pick him up right now if you want. However, if I catch him at one of my crime scenes again, I'll bring down the full force of the law, I don't care if he's engaged to a former cop."
"Thank you, sir. I'm on an assignment right now, but I'll be there as soon as possible to get him." Kate started moving again.
"That's alright, agent. Don't wait too long. He's been complaining about the coffee and sketchy police work, since he's been brought here, and I don't know how much longer I can keep my men from strangling him to make him shut up, if I put him into the break room."
"Yep, that sounds like him. For my part, you can let him sweat a little and leave him in the interrogation room. Tell him you couldn't reach me. That'll teach him a lesson." Kate chuckled.
"I don't want another homicide to investigate when you come pick him up." The captain joked back.
"At least it'll be a quick solve. I won't resist the arrest. Thank you, sir, I appreciate the courtesy call."
"No problem, agent. We're all on the same team."
After the captain rattled of the station's address, he hung up. Kate looked up into the bemused eyes of Rachel.
"I didn't know you had a kid," McCord stated and Kate rolled her eyes. Before she could explain, Rachel pulled out the keys to the car. "Come on, I'll drive. The boys can finish for us. We'll call them on our way over to your son's school."
Kate opened her mouth in protest but didn't know what to say. Where should she begin?
"Geeze, Beckett. Get a move on." McCord yelled as she got into the car and leaned over the middle console to open the door for her colleague. "I'll need the address, too."
Kate got quietly into the passenger seat and rattled off the address.
"Beckett, that's Metro P.D.!" Rachel exclaimed surprised.
"Yeah, well. He managed to get arrested." Kate grumbled and massaged her forehead. "Again." She muttered.
"Again?" McCord repeated unsure if she'd heard the other woman correctly. "This is not his first brush with the law?"
"Unfortunately not." Beckett sighed.
"Shoplifting?" Rachel looked at Kate sympathetically.
"What?" Beckett whipped her head around confused. "No, nothing like that. He's just…" She trailed off and rolled her eyes, "boys will be boys."
"So what did he do this time?"
"Playing cop." Kate shrugged her shoulders.
"Playing cop? How old is your kid anyway?"
"Most of the time it feels like I've got a nine-year-old on a sugar rush." Kate grinned, affection creeping into her heart.
"That bad, huh?"
"You have no idea!" Beckett grunted.
"I didn't even know you had a kid. Never pegged you for a mom." McCord explained.
"Yeah, well, I didn't exactly sign up for it." Kate smiled mysteriously. "Kinda just got dropped into my lap one day."
"Uh-huh," McCord grunted. "You should've told me, Kate. This changes things. If I had known you were a mother… Why was there nothing in your file?"
Okay, this had gone far enough, Kate realized. As fun as it was talking about Castle like that with her new colleague, she had to come clean with her new supervisor.
"Yeah, about that…" Kate began.
