A/N: Again, thanks to all my lovely reviewers. I've gotten some lovely ones for this story, which always makes me happy. This chapter took a slightly more serious turn that I wasn't quite prepared for. It's interesting, and I kind of like it personally. I hope you guys do too.
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Chapter 4
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"Castle."
"Dude your Mom's hot!"
"Always what any son likes to hear when he picks up the phone," Castle said sarcastically.
"Nah, I didn't mean it like that," Esposito explained. "Well, not exactly. I mean, your Mom's definitely hot, but it's not like I want to…"
"Stop!" Castle interrupted. "I get it. No need to explain," he added quickly.
Esposito grinned.
"So I take it you guys did go to the play then?" Castle asked, hoping to prevent the Detective from going into detail about his mother's many… attributes.
"Yeah," Esposito confirmed. "We all went yesterday, Ryan, Jenny and I."
"No Lanie then?" Castle double-checked. "Ryan said she might go," he explained.
"She had plans," Esposito said.
"Hmm. Too bad," Castle murmured. "Guess it was just you and Ryan and his lovely lady out for an exciting day in Williamsburg then," Castle said softly.
"Hey," Esposito said a touch irritated at the writer's tone. "Jenny's nice. You met her. And Ryan really likes her. We had a good time."
"I'm sure you did," Castle said quickly, somewhat surprised by the Detective's annoyance. "I didn't mean to imply…"
"Yeah, I know," Esposito said slowly. "Sorry 'bout that."
Castle shrugged, "Whatever." The writer figured Esposito had taken the off-the-cut comment as some sort of slight towards his partner. He got that. Police officers were (for the most part) unbelievably loyal. They had to be. Still, why Javier thought Castle would have slighted anyone at the station, let alone one of Esposito's closest colleagues, was beyond him.
"Anyway," Esposito said after a brief pause. "The three of us went to the play. It was a good show man. Your Mom's good at what she does."
"Thanks," Castle told him, hoping the other man would leave it at that. "Did you say hi to Martha?" he asked.
"Of course," Esposito said with a grin. "The three of us met her backstage. She was thrilled."
"I can imagine," Castle said dryly."
"Seemed pleased that the Detectives of the 12th went to see her play. Especially since her only son hasn't bothered to drive up and see it. Her words by the way. She said hi to us all, and then she took us backstage for a tour. Jenny loved it, so Ryan was happy. And she totally introduced me to a hot actress, so I was happy too," Esposito gloated.
Castle grinned. Ah. Male bragging. He'd suspected there might have been some sort of secondary reason for this call. "You get a number?" he asked his friend.
"Maybe," Esposito told him. "Real men don't kiss and tell."
"Who said anything about kissing?" Castle shot back. "I just asked you about a number."
"And I've decided it's more fun to let you sit up there in your fancy house in the Hamptons and wonder," Esposito replied.
"Yeah, that'll really keep me up at night," Castle muttered.
"Thought it might," Esposito said with a grin. "I gotta say though, it was pretty cool being introduced to actors backstage."
"And while she was introducing you, Mother got to walk around showing off a guy about thirty years younger than she is who liked her performance," Castle pointed out.
"Hey, it was win-win," Esposito said with a shrug.
"True," Castle agreed.
"So how you doing man?" Esposito asked. "Book going well?"
"Pretty well," Castle acknowledged. "It'll be in by the summer, which is good."
"Your publishers should be happy about that," Esposito said neutrally.
"Yeah," Castle agreed with an absent-minded nod. "I've already missed a couple of deadlines, so I can only imagine that they're thrilled I'm actually meeting the new ones," he added.
"Sure," Esposito nodded.
Castle frowned slightly. All of a sudden his friend wasn't as talkative as usual. Come to think of it, the same thing had happened when the book came up while he'd been talking to Ryan a couple of days ago. "You okay man?" the writer asked concerned.
"Hm?" Esposito asked, somewhat surprised by the question. "Of course," he said immediately. "Why wouldn't I be?"
"I don't know," Castle admitted. "But you got pretty quiet all of a sudden when I mentioned the book."
"Sorry Castle," Esposito said quickly. "Must have gotten distracted or something. You know how it is."
"Sure," Rick agreed slowly, wondering if he should continue. Unsurprisingly, his curiosity, as it almost always did, got the better of him. "Only thing is, Ryan got kinda quiet last time I talked to him when I mentioned the book as well," Castle explained. "Is something wrong?" he asked. "Is the book causing problems at the station that nobody's telling me about?"
Esposito paused. Then he sighed softly. He really shouldn't have been surprised by the observation, or the question. There was a reason they kept the writer around after all. "Nah, nothing like that," the detective answered honestly. Truthfully there had been a bit of gossip surrounding the mystery writer's rather sudden exit from the station, but most people had accepted the explanation floating around, that Castle had left because he needed to spend some serious time working on his book. It was one of those rare times when the gossip mill was actually reasonably satisfied by the truth, something Esposito was glad about, for all of their sakes.
"Because I know Beckett mentioned she took a bit of flak because of it earlier," Castle admitted, feeling slightly guilty. The woman was strong enough to take it obviously, but that certainly didn't make it right. "But she never mentioned anything when I talked to her," the writer continued. "Not that she would obviously," he admitted. "But she also said she wasn't mad at me, and I don't think she was lying."
Esposito winced, wondering idly if there was any possible way that he could get out of this conversation. "If Beckett said she wasn't mad," he said slowly. "Then she probably isn't. After all, my experience is that if she's pissed off at someone, they know about it," Esposito added, trying for the joke.
"That's true," Castle said with half a smile.
"And if someone ever hurt her then Ryan and I would always be there, getting her back, if you know what I mean," Esposito added before he could stop myself.
"Obviously," Rick replied softly, slowly, a suspicion starting to take root in a remote corner of his brain. "She's your partner."
"She is," Esposito agreed. "Beckett, Ryan and me. We're a team. It's our job to take care of each other."
"I would never intentionally hurt her," Castle said, not sure if it was the right thing to say or not. He was suddenly very aware that despite his friendly personality, Esposito was a trained homicide detective, very used to interrogating suspects and very used to telling them only what he wanted to. And while Castle was asking most of the questions, he couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't really in control of the conversation.
"I know," Esposito replied readily. That had never been the issue. Everyone with working eyes in their head knew Castle would never deliberately hurt Beckett.
"O-kaaay," Castle drew out the word. He waited for the Detective to continue. When Esposito didn't say anything, Castle decided to just bite the bullet and get it over with. "Did I do something that I don't know about?" he asked, almost dreading the answer. "Something wrong? Something that hurt Kate?"
"No," Esposito said with the slightest shake of his head. "You didn't do anything wrong Castle," he admitted evenly.
If Castle noticed the evasion he didn't mention it. "But I did something you don't agree with," the writer pressed. "You and Ryan."
Esposito chose his words carefully. "Like I said, nobody thinks you did anything wrong," he explained.
"But?" Castle prompted.
"But Beckett likes control," Esposito said suddenly, inspiration striking.
"I had noticed," Castle muttered sarcastically, almost bitterly. Beckett had explained to him more than once how much she liked control, how unwilling she was to take risks.
"She likes being in control at work," Esposito continued on gamely.
"And I took that away from her?" Castle asked.
"No. Well, not exactly," Esposito admitted. "But she never really had much of a say in whether you shadowed her or not, between the mayor and the commissioner and Montgomery…"
"Hey!" Castle interrupted. "I was ready to leave when she asked," he defended. More than once he thought to himself, but he wasn't supposed to tell anyone about the second time.
"I know Castle," Esposito agreed. "We all know. And we like you, you know we do. Though depending on her mood Beckett might deny it if we ever asked her directly."
"So?"
"So you can still come and go as you please," Esposito explained. "For obvious reasons. You're just a consultant. This isn't your job. You're not getting paid or anything. It makes sense. But I think your sudden disappearing act this spring took Beckett a bit by surprise."
"It did?" Castle asked, somewhat surprised. "But I asked her about it."
"Well yeah," Esposito said. "But when you told her you needed some time off to finish your book what was she supposed to say? No? Don't be stupid. We both know you're not. She'd never say that. She knows that the two of you have your own lives even if you were sort of partners for a while."
Sort of partners, Castle thought ruefully, trying to ignore the feeling of having been demoted, deserved or not.
"And Beckett understands dedication to your job," Esposito added with a smirk. "But you still blindsided her a bit is all," he finished, quite pleased with himself. The story had just enough truth to it that hopefully the writer wouldn't dig too much deeper.
"I see," Castle said thoughtfully. And he did. To an extent. He'd never really thought of himself that way, ducking in and out of her life according to his whim. But he supposed it might look like that to other people. And sure, maybe part of his sudden desire to leave had a bit to do with not wanting to watch Beckett flirt with Demming day in and day out, but he'd also really needed to finish his books. Besides, it wasn't like he was going to be gone forever. "I'm coming back in the fall though," Castle pointed out. "It's just for the summer after all. She knows that."
"Sure," Esposito said just a little too agreeably.
Castle paused. "Does she think I'm not coming back?"
"Like I said before, I don't know what she thinks," Esposito told him. "You'll have to ask her."
Castle gritted his teeth in frustration. "What do you think?" he asked bluntly, suddenly sick of getting a lot of non-answers from everybody.
"I think a lot of things changed pretty quickly," Esposito replied. "Who knows what could happen over the course of the summer?"
Castle was dumbfounded. He wondered who else thought he wasn't coming back. "I always planned to come back in the fall," he assured the Detective.
Esposito smiled. He couldn't help it. "Glad to hear it," he told the other man sincerely.
Castle smiled slightly in return. "Thanks," he replied. He decided to change the subject back to something lighter while he figured out what to do. "And I'm glad you liked the play, though I'm sorry Lanie couldn't go," he added slyly. "And I'm still not sure how I feel about my friends telling me my mother's attractive."
"That's your problem man," Esposito told him, still enjoying the writers discomfort. He also hoped Castle took the hint and did a bit of digging on his own. Esposito'd done all he could to explain things to the man. Castle'd have to do the rest for himself.
Castle decided to ignore that. "And thanks for you know…" he gestured in the air vaguely, knowing the Detective couldn't see it.
"Don't mention it," Esposito said easily, feeling more forgiving than he had earlier. After all, his irritation towards the writer was mostly unfair. Mostly. "I guess I'll be seeing you later," he added meaningfully.
"Unless you guys bar me from the precinct," Castle joked.
"You never know," Esposito shot back.
"Bye."
"Bye."
Castle hung up the phone thoughtfully. He had more of the pieces to the puzzle, he was sure of it. But he couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was still missing something.
Something quite important.
Maybe Beckett wasn't mad at him, but everybody else at the precinct seemed to be.
Just a little.
xxxxx
"Beckett," Kate said as she grabbed her phone and walked slightly away from her latest crime scene.
"Hello Detective," she heard her boss say. "Sorry to bother you at a crime scene."
"Of course Sir," she said easily. She was far from irritated. If Montgomery was calling her when he knew she was at a crime scene then he had a reason.
"It's just that, well, I just hung up with the commissioner and he's not the most patient of men after all, so I thought I'd better call you right away," Montgomery explained.
Curiosity well and truly piqued, her eyebrows rose. "What is it?" she asked him.
"It's about Castle," Montgomery told her apologetically.
Beckett froze. "Castle?" she asked, desperately trying to sound as casual as possible. "What about Castle?" Of course it was about Castle. Why else would the commissioner care one way or the other what she did?
Montgomery hesitated. "Well, it seems that both the mayor and the commissioner were wondering if he'd be coming back when he finishes his novel." Montgomery explained. "I was wondering if you might know for sure."
Beckett wrapped an arm around herself. Did she know? She wasn't sure why everyone seemed to think that she'd know that sort of thing. She'd only spoken to Castle a handful of times over the summer, and she certainly hadn't asked him one way or the other. "He said he was when he left this spring," she told her boss carefully. "But he hasn't mentioned anything about it since then," she admitted. "Of course, it's not like I talk to him as much as I used to," Beckett added lightly.
Montgomery winced slightly in his office. Of course the woman didn't talk to Castle as much anymore. Who could blame her? Really, who could blame either of them? It was probably unbelievably awkward. Still, he needed to know. "Have you asked him about it lately?" Montgomery asked gently.
"N-No," Kate admitted awkwardly. And she absolutely did not want to.
"I see," her boss replied softly.
In the pause that followed Kate sighed. "I... I could call him you'd like," she offered. She had to find out sooner or later. May as well be now. "It'll keep the commissioner happy," she continued. "I assume he and the mayor don't want to lose their favourite source of good press for the NYPD," she added.
"Nope," Montgomery agreed.
"Alright," Beckett said with a sigh. "I'll just…"
"Hey Beckett," Montgomery interrupted suddenly. "You're in the middle of a crime scene. Why don't you let me call him?"
"Really?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"Sure," Montgomery agreed. "Probably be better coming from the head of the 12th anyway, don't you think?"
Beckett let out an ever so slightly ragged breath. "Thanks," she said softly.
"No problem," the Captain said, dismissing her gratitude. "You just get to work finding that killer."
"I was planning on it," Beckett replied immediately.
Montgomery smiled fondly. "I know," he told her. "And Beckett?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm sure he'll be back in the fall," he told her. "It's really just a confirmation thing. You know how it is."
"Sure," Beckett replied. Then she tried to shake off her seriousness. "After all, Castle's harder to get rid of than a chest cold," she added playfully.
"Exactly," Montgomery said with a grin. "Well," he added more seriously. "I'll let you get back to your crime scene."
"Thank you sir," she told him. "You'll let me know what he says?" she asked tentatively.
"If he doesn't tell you himself," Montgomery promised.
Kate nodded once. "Okay," she agreed. "I'll talk to you later sir."
"Detective," Montgomery said as he hung up the phone.
He sighed as he picked up his phone again. It really was better that he made the call, though it wasn't exactly one he was looking forward to. Sometimes he wondered if things wouldn't be simpler in the long run without the author, for all that he did help them solve cases.
Besides, Montgomery couldn't help feeling just the faintest bit guilty about the way things had turned out. He'd been the one to thrust the man into her life after all.
xxxxx
"Castle," the writer said pleasantly.
"Rick, it's Roy," Montgomery said in an equally friendly tone. For all his flaws it was damn hard to actually dislike the man.
"Captain!" Castle said happily. "This is a surprise. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"I'll get to that in a minute," Montgomery told him. "First how are you? I haven't spoken to you in a while," he added.
Castle ran a hand over his face. "Yeah, well, you know how it is, you get busy..." he explained. "But I'm doing well. Book's getting done slowly. And Alexis and Martha are both having a good summer."
"Good," Montgomery said with a nod. "Glad to hear it."
"How about you?" Castle asked. "Still working on that golf game?"
"Not as much as I'd like," Montgomery admitted ruefully. "But things are going reasonably smoothly at work, as smoothly as they ever do at least, and the family's fine, so I can't complain."
"Guess not," Castle agreed.
Montgomery cleared his throat. "Unfortunately this isn't just a social call Rick," he explained.
"I didn't think it was," Castle admitted, trying not to worry.
"I'm calling because, well I just got off the phone with the commissioner, and he just got off the phone with the mayor," Montgomery paused. "Basically we were all wondering if you were coming back to the precinct in the fall or not."
"What?" Castle asked in surprise. It seemed that no one really expected him to return, though he hadn't the faintest idea why.
"Obviously you're welcome," Montgomery hastened to assure him. "I spoke to Beckett and she seemed to think you'd be coming back at some point."
"She wasn't sure?" Castle interrupted.
Montgomery paused. "She said you hadn't really discussed the specifics," he said slowly. "So she didn't want to commit herself one way or the other to the commissioner," he explained.
"Right," Castle said slowly. "Well," he added. "It was always my intention to come back."
"Great," Montgomery said, clearly relieved. "I'll tell..."
"But," Castle interrupted. "I think I'd like to run the specifics by Beckett," he told the Captain. "You can tell the Commissioner that I'll almost certainly be back in the fall, but that he'll have to wait until I speak to Detective Beckett before I can give him the details. I think I owe her that." Esposito's words were echoing in his head. Beckett didn't like feeling like things were out of control at work, and she felt like she had no control about whether he came or went.
Montgomery paused, obviously surprised by the condition. "Okay," he said. "Good then."
"Okay," Castle replied, somewhat irritated that it seemed to be coming as a surprise to Montgomery that he wanted to run his plans by Kate.
"I'll tell the Commissioner," Montgomery assured him.
"And I'll talk to Kate," Castle added.
"Actually Rick," Montgomery told him. "She just got a new case today, so she might be a little... distracted.
Castle grinned at the idea. Depending on how difficult the case was, distracted might be an understatement. "Maybe I'll wait a day or two," he said with half a laugh.
"It might be best," Montgomery agreed.
"Yeah," Castle replied. "Thanks for the warning."
"No problem," Montgomery replied. "Well," he said suddenly. "I guess I'll see you in the fall then Rick."
"Absolutely," Castle replied. "It was nice talking to you."
"You too," Montgomery said. "Give my best to your family."
"Likewise," Castle replied.
He stared at his phone pensively. Why did everyone seem so surprised that he was coming back in the fall? After all, he'd said he was. And why was there a hint of awkwardness running under almost every conversation he had with anyone from the precinct, except maybe Beckett herself sometimes?
And why couldn't he shake the feeling that he'd done something wrong, despite what everybody said?
He had no idea, but one thing was certain, he needed to talk to Kate again, and soon. The two of them obviously needed to clear the air.
For some reason or other.
xxxxx
TBC