Title: Seven People
Summary: Only six people knew about them. Six was a good number. The next step up from six was seven, and seven was daunting. Whereas six was small and intimate, seven was well on its way to being a dinner party. Spoilers for season 5. Oneshot.
Spoilers: General season 5 speculation spoilers based on interviews.
A/N: Needed a break from Insights. This is set in early season 5 assuming our intrepid heroes solve the whole Maddox issue and go back to work fairly quickly. And yes, I totally ripped the title off from West Wing.
Beckett.
At work she was Beckett. At home she could be Kate. Or Beckett, depending on his mood. Sometimes he called her 'Detective Beckett' in a voice decidedly not for the office, and she rolled her eyes at him. But usually she was just Kate.
And that was why it was so important to transition on his way to the precinct every morning. He repeated the last name in his mind over and over again to cement it. Beckett. Detective Beckett.
Of course, she had it easy. She just called him Castle whether they were alone or with others. Of course, the subtle inflection she gave his name changed depending on if they had an audience, but the word itself stayed the same. Once in a while she called him Rick - and by 'called' he meant 'screamed so loudly they were surprised the neighbors didn't hear' - but that was fairly rare. Rare that she used his first name, not the screaming thing. His male pride maintained that she did that a lot.
Besides, he didn't mind being Castle. He had chosen the name, after all.
He just wished it wasn't so difficult for him to remember to use the correct name for her depending on the situation.
Three mornings before, Castle had almost given them away. He walked into the precinct feeling as though he were walking on the proverbial cloud nine. They'd spent the night together again, and while it was not a new thing, he was still blissfully ensconced in that new relationship feeling. The extra spring in his step must have showed because Esposito narrowed his eyes at the writer and noted suspiciously, "You seem happy."
He shrugged diffidently. "I'm always happy."
"Unusually happy," the detective clarified, then added, "morning-after happy."
Castle paused, hoping he didn't look too guilty as he considered his response. Because he and Beckett had made the decision to keep their burgeoning relationship secret, even from the guys, he could not respond in the affirmative without giving them away. And on the flip side, if he implied that he had enjoyed a morning-after with someone other than Beckett, he feared bodily harm from the detective who often treated Beckett as a sister.
Putting on his best Emmy-worthy expression of disappointment, Castle sighed. "Not that happy, I'm afraid," before flashing an almost imperceptible glance towards Beckett's desk.
A flick of Esposito's eyes confirmed that he noticed the look and after another heartbeat of scrutiny, he smiled at the writer with the shared sympathy of a single man. "Maybe someday, bro," he said, clapping Castle on the shoulder.
Relieved that he had not given them away, Castle continued on to Kate's desk. Beckett's desk. Beckett, he repeated in his mind.
"Good morning, Ka-" He stopped, the panic registering in her eyes at the slip just as his tongue tied itself in a knot around her name. "Coffee?" he recovered, holding out the tall cup for her to accept.
Very carefully, he glanced around. People continued on with their morning, answering phones, typing on computers, talking as they wandered towards the break room. No one had noticed him almost call her by her first name.
"Thanks," Beckett said, rewarding his quick recovery with a smile.
As he took his customary seat next to hers, Castle reveled in the improvised play in which they found themselves - two people in a relationship, a secret relationship, no one else could know about.
But the added wrinkle to this particular story was that they could not just go about business as usual, two people utterly unattracted to each other. That would tip off those around them immediately. No, they had to act like two people still suffering the effects of unresolved sexual tension even though that particular tension had been resolved. Repeatedly. And loudly.
"No murder today?" he asked, taking note of the empty murder board and the relaxed nature of the guys, who were standing next to Ryan's desk conversing on something Castle doubted was work related. While the two partners had a rocky time after Esposito's suspension was lifted, they gradually settling back into their former relationship.
Kate - no, Beckett - shook her head. "Just paperwork. But the day is still young, Castle."
Her eyes flashed at that observation and only he knew that it was a reference to their evening spend together the night before. He had suggested that she needed to get to bed to get enough sleep for work. She had countered with, "The night is still young," before leading him to the bedroom.
As it turned out, she was correct. An hour later they caught a body. By lunchtime they had made the notification to the next of kin and late afternoon had them staring at the timeline emerging on the white murder board as they discussed the witnesses they'd interviewed and any theories about the case.
When Castle did not throw out a wild theory, Beckett teased him about it. Thus, he voiced what had already come to mind - a not quite outlandish possibility, but definitely not one the evidence would have automatically led them to reach.
"You think the mailman did it?" she asked, incredulous.
"Postal carrier," he corrected. "And it isn't outside the realm of possibility."
"And why would you think it was the postal carrier?"
He quickly proceeded to launch into his well-considered theory, including the fact that the victim's son looked nothing like him (and while they no longer had deliveries from milk men in New York, they did have postal deliveries), none of the neighbors saw anyone unusual come in or out of the building (but one did hear the dog barking), and there was neither recent mail in the apartment or in the couple's mailbox in the lobby of the building.
Beckett rolled her eyes at his theory but directed Ryan to check out the mailman anyway.
"Postal carrier," Castle corrected again, which earned him a pointed look of annoyance. He was pushing his luck.
By dinner, his postal carrier theory was defeated. The person assigned to the route including the victim's apartment was a sixty-five year old woman anxiously awaiting her retirement who had no independent recollection of the victim or his family. As well, the victim's son did not look like him because the couple had adopted the boy at age three when the victim's wife's sister was unable to care for the child. The dog barked... well, the dog barked all the time.
As it became clear that there would be no closure on the case, Castle waited, hoping that the guys and Captain Gates would leave first so he could walk out of the precinct with Beckett without being observed. Unfortunately, while Gates left at her customary time and Esposito departed for what Castle doubted was a real date despite his repeated boasts, Ryan resolutely stayed behind to help them go over things one last time for any leads they may have missed.
"Want me to call for food?" the young detective offered. Castle recognized his well-intentioned nature but wanted to strangle the man for thwarting his hoped-for dinner with Beckett. He felt certain he could get her out of the precinct for a few hours with the promise of food, but not if food was brought to her.
"Nah, I think I'm going to call it a night," she said, addressing both him and Ryan. "We'll come back tomorrow with fresh eyes."
Taking charge, Beckett shooed Ryan out of the bullpen before flashing Castle a pleased but tired smile. "Walk me to my car?" she requested.
He'd walk her to the moon if she asked, so she was not surprised when he agreed. She asked about Alexis as they made their way out of the building, listening to him tell her information she already knew, stories she'd already heard directly from his daughter. It was all for the sake of appearances, so no one would know they were together, or even suspect the same. But she laughed at his embellishments and let him open the door for her - really, how could people not know there was something going on with them from that alone?
But no one knew. No one knew that night or the next day or the next. Esposito sometimes gave them a suspicious look, but as Castle eased him into the belief that he was actively trying to work up the nerve to ask Beckett out, the detective gave him more sympathy than grief. And Ryan was completely oblivious to any change in their relationship. No matter how many quiet conversations he interrupted or how closely they were standing together when he entered the break room unexpectedly or how many times he called Beckett about a body only to hear Castle in the background ("Do you have the TV on?"), he did not tie any of it together.
Gates was their only issue. She had the quick, unforgetting eyes of a cold-blooded creature, taking in every nuance of Castle's interactions with Beckett. She definitely suspected something, even if she could not quite put her finger on what it was. And while Castle knew she had never liked him, he had hoped they had developed a grudging understanding of one another. Unfortunately, whatever truce they had been operating under before Beckett went after Maddox immediately went out the window upon Beckett's reinstatement.
"I know you were part of the reason she quit, Mr. Castle," the Captain had informed him when she'd caught him alone. "I don't like you here. You don't belong. One wrong move, one more distraction of my officers, and you're gone."
He and Kate had decided that announcing the two of them in a relationship would tip the 'distraction' balance into the negative and get Castle thrown out for good. So they were keeping it a secret, at least from everyone at the precinct.
Alexis knew because he didn't keep secrets from Alexis. His mother knew because Alexis knew - and because hiding things from his mother was almost impossible. And Kate had told her father, bringing the total of all people aware of their relationship to... five.
And he suspected that Eduardo, his doorman, was also on the list considering how often Kate came by the loft. That brought the total to six.
Six was a good number. A strong number. A manageable number.
The next step up from six was seven, and seven... seven was daunting. Whereas six was small and intimate, seven was well on its way to a dinner party.
And so when something he did threatened to turn their magic number six into a seven, Castle got nervous. And it made Kate grumpy.
"I can't believe you did that," she seethed one day on their drive into the precinct from a crime scene.
"I'm sorry," he said again, for what he felt was the thousandth time. "It was just habit."
"Well it's a habit you need to break," Kate grumbled. Oh, but they were nearing the precinct. He needed to transition back into Beckett.
"I thought you liked it when I-"
"Not in front of other people!"
He hadn't done anything lewd or lascivious. No, it was just a simple touch, a hand at the small of her back as they walked down an alleyway towards the crime scene. And then she stumbled. He blamed the crazy high-heeled boots she wore, the ones that cut against every other practicality as a police officer she usually demonstrated. She said that he startled her by touching her back, and that caused her to trip on a piece of debris in the alley.
Either way, Beckett did not fall because he caught her. He moved with pure instinct, not wanting her body to hit pavement, one arm snaking out with lightning reflexes to grab her shoulder, another to encircle her waist. In truth, it was quite romantic and Castle was proud of himself for reacting so quickly.
Unfortunately, Lanie saw the whole thing, her appraising eyes watching them down the alley as she squatted next to the body. And while her eyebrows rose at their brief almost-fall and catch, she said nothing. No teasing. No insinuations. No "call me later" to Beckett. She simply launched into her observations about the murder victim at her feet and left all personal matters out of it.
"She definitely suspects something," Beckett told him later, annoyed.
"It's Lanie. She isn't going to say anything."
"Yeah, but she's going to be mad that she wasn't told."
"So tell her."
"We already talked about this," she stated. "The fewer people who know, the better."
Kate had gone to great lengths to make sure he understood that it wasn't about any hesitance on her part to be in a relationship. Rather, if they became public knowledge, Gates would kick him out of the precinct. There were rules against such things, and Castle understood why. Working as a police officer, you could not be objective and rational if you were going into danger with a loved one. And yet, he knew that many cops worked for years with partners they came to rely on at work as much as they did their spouses at home. Wasn't it the same thing? And wasn't Kate - Beckett, he reminded himself yet again - his partner first? So why should adding sex to their relationship suddenly make everything different?
And yet, it did. He knew it did. And the proof was offered up to him very quickly one afternoon on their way to a routine arrest.
They weren't wearing vests, didn't expect the victim's neighbor to have realized his picture had moved from the 'witness' column on the murder board to the heading of 'suspect.' Nor did they expect him to begin shooting at them from his third floor apartment window as soon as they stepped out of Kate's car.
Castle once again acted on instinct. Before he could even register what he was doing, he had pushed Kate to the ground behind the car and was covering her with his body. Somehow, his mind had transformed a perfectly calm New York City afternoon into a crisp morning in a cemetery with a sniper taking aim at the woman he loved. For a few seconds, he could see nothing else but that day at Montgomery's funeral and Kate bleeding out in his arms.
Luckily, the man had terrible aim. Only one shot even hit the car they were behind.
As she shouted at him and began struggling against him, Castle finally came back to himself.
"Castle, get off me!" she hissed.
"Sorry," he mumbled dumbly as he complied.
Once he let her up, she was able to pull herself into a crouched position and pull out her gun. And as soon as she began returning fire, the guy in the window surrendered, not having truly expected his targets to shoot back.
They arrested the suspect easily after that, although Kate waited for backup to arrive before going in after him. Just in case. She played it by the book, retrieved her vest from the back of the car before going in with the guys. When Castle asked about his vest, she gave him a pointed look and stated, "You aren't going in. After what you just pulled? You're sitting this one out."
And so, he'd been in the doghouse the rest of the day. After the arrest, he waited with her for an Internal Affairs investigator to arrive and question her. They took her firearm as well, but promised to have it back as soon as possible. Just procedure for any officer shooting, they told her. They expected no difficulty resolving her case in short order considering a dozen neighborhood witnesses affirmed she and Castle had been fired on first. But it still irked her.
Kate - er... Beckett - made him sit out of interrogation on the suspect. Not that he was needed. She had the man crying like a little girl and rushing to write out his confession on a lined yellow legal pad within minutes.
"What'd you do to piss off Beckett?" Esposito asked as they watched her through the glass.
He considered lying or obfuscating to protect their secret but decided that he would have reacted the same way whether they were sleeping together or not.
"When the guy started shooting, I tackled her and couldn't let her up."
"You didn't let her up?" Ryan questioned, incredulous.
"Not right away. I just sort of... froze."
Both detectives looked worried at this disclosure. "Does Gates know?" Espo asked. He shook his head. "Then you keep that to yourself if you want to stay around here and follow Beckett any longer. One whiff of what you just said and she'd throw you out of here faster than last night's Thai take out."
That was if Beckett would even let him stay, Castle decided later as he sat in his chair by her desk. She'd been doing extra paperwork on the shooting incident for two hours. Really? Why so much paperwork for doing exactly what she'd been trained to do? No one was hurt. Even her car had only been hit once, and the damage looked relatively minor. Of course, when he'd offered to pay for it, she'd looked furious and said something about the department covering the repairs.
It was one of the few things she'd said to him since the incident. He could tell she was still angry by her hunched, coiled posture. She looked like a predator waiting to strike. Or waiting to be disturbed enough to warrant a reprisal strike.
But Castle waited for her, patient and innocuous. He ignored the pointed way she was ignoring him and sat there silently watching her fill out form after form. When her coffee mug was empty, he refilled it automatically and did not even blink when she gave no thanks for the gesture.
When the clock got close to 10 pm, he finally ventured to ask her if she wanted dinner. He offered to go for take-out even though he knew she was done with the real paperwork. She'd been reviewing and re-writing the same things for the last hour, pretending so that she could avoid him.
"Not hungry," she answered curtly.
He pressed, "You still need to eat."
"Maybe you need to go home," was her retort. Damn, he pressed too hard.
"I'll wait for you to get done," he told her.
But she already had her mind made up. He'd broken the bubble of her anger, and now he was going to have to deal with it. Luckily, the bullpen was empty so there would be no witnesses to the tirade he was about to suffer through.
"No, you can go home, Castle." When she turned to address him, he could only console himself with the fact that she was no longer ignoring him. However, the finality in her voice scared him. "I still can't believe what you did today. That was completely unacceptable."
Wait, what?
"A suspect shot at us and I tackled you," he said, not sure how this was unacceptable.
"And then you held me down and wouldn't let me do my job, Castle."
How long had he held her down? He had no idea. "I was just trying to keep you safe," he defended.
He saw her flinch at his soft tone of voice, his hurt expression. But she stated angrily, "I'm the cop here, Castle. Not you. You don't protect me. That's not how it works."
"I protect you all the time!" he exclaimed back. A dozen scenarios swam through his mind, incidentally coinciding with the 'I've saved your life more times than you've saved mine' conversation from the year before.
Beckett paused, and he realized that the truth of his statement had hit her hard.
"You aren't supposed to," she said finally, quietly.
"I'm your partner," he pointed out. "That's what partners do."
"Yeah, but you aren't a cop," she said again, as though that now made a difference when in the past it never had.
Narrowing his eyes at her, he demanded, "What is this really about?"
And then, there was the reaction. She couldn't conceal it, couldn't hide it behind the anger she'd been projecting all day. He saw it loud and clear.
Fear.
She was afraid.
"You could have gotten hurt today," she said. "And I'm worried that the regulations they have about cops in relationships not working together might be there for a reason."
"You think I wouldn't let you up because we're in a relationship?" he asked.
Kate nodded - and ah hell, he was going to just bloody well call her Kate if he wanted to.
"I would have done it regardless."
"That's the problem."
They stared at each other for several long moments with Castle waiting for more. Tendrils of his own fear crept through his body as he watched her, wishing he could read her mind. Was this the end of their working together? Was it - he took a deep breath - the end of them?
But when she spoke, he could tell she was relenting, that she couldn't give him up in either arena. "Castle, you have to let me do my job. Even if it's dangerous, trying to protect me could get us both killed."
He understood her concern, he really did. But-
"Kate, I didn't realize what I was doing. I just... I hear the shots and I knew they were close and they were aimed at us, and I just... reacted."
He knew she'd appreciate what he was saying - she'd had her own struggles with the aftermath of that day in the cemetery. However, he was not expecting her to suggest, "Maybe you should talk to someone."
A therapist. She thought he should see a therapist.
Castle bristled at the idea, but as she looked at him, her face having softened to worry - and dare he say love? - he grudgingly acknowledged that she might be right. He'd never really dealt with his own feelings about her shooting, about her withdrawal that summer she healed. And maybe he needed to.
"If I talk to someone, will you let me stay?" he bargained.
Thankfully, she did not torture him with hesitance. She immediately nodded, stating, "Yes. If you see someone, I'll let you stay. But Castle, you have got to let me do my job. If someone is shooting at us, you can't just hold me down and try to keep me safe."
"I understand."
"Because that kind of thing can get either or both of us killed."
"I know, I know."
"And even though we really should, we can't tell Gates about this. She'd throw you out for sure and she'd probably suspend me again for letting it happen."
Sufficiently chided, Castle nodded his compliance despite having already made the same promise to Esposito.
When she met his eyes again, he could instantly tell by her softened expression that he was forgiven. He took a step towards her, needing to kiss her, to touch her, to... just be near her. But she shook her head slightly and Castle realized they were still standing in the middle of the bullpen, had just had that entire conversation in the middle of the precinct. And even if no one was around, it was dangerous.
"So we're okay?" he asked, hoping she would know how much else he wanted to say.
"We're okay," Kate confirmed, then stopped, biting her lip. "But one more thing. Don't call me Kate at work."
He searched his memory for such a slip. Had he called her Kate out loud? No, while he may slip up in his own mind, he was good about always speaking 'Beckett' even when he mentally thought 'Kate.'
"I didn't."
"Yes you did."
"When?"
"Just a little while ago."
"I don't remember that."
As their banter returned, Castle followed her towards the elevator, already thinking of ways to convince her to accompany him home to the loft. Or to let him spend the night with her. Once they reached the ground floor, they passed the night janitor, an enthusiastic older gentleman that Castle had talked to on a couple of occasions.
"Good night, Gary," Kate said as they walked by.
"G'night Detective. Mr. Castle. Nice to see you two kids finally together."
And as he went back to mopping the floor, Castle turned to Kate as they exchanged a startled look. Were they that obvious? Or were rumors making their way through the precinct?
Castle shrugged, not really caring at the moment. They had solved a murder, survived a shoot-out, and resolved their argument. And they were on their way to what he hoped would be another pleasant date ending in one of their beds.
So what if apparently the number was seven after all? Seven was fine.
In all honesty, Castle was a little relieved. He never really did like the number six anyway.