Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
The muscle just below his left ear is twitching. "Oh, I think I said it again, Beckett. Many times. Not outright, not 'I love you' out loud, because you made it very clear that you weren't ready to hear it."
"I made that clear?"
"Crystal. Surely you haven't forgotten that conversation? We had it right after you came back in September."
"I haven't forgotten it, Castle."
"Good to know that your memory is functioning well. A healthy thirty-two-year-old woman should be able to remember everything."
He used his hands to make quotes around "everything." If she hadn't already known how angry he is, that would have told her. He hates air quotes.
"Yeah, well, maybe I'm not so healthy."
She's not healthy? She's sick? He feels as though he's been thrown through the ice into a deep, enormous lake and there's no ladder, no kind of life line for him to pull himself out. He forces a question past the bowling-ball-size lump in his windpipe. "You're sick?"
"Not sick, sick. Fucked up sick. FUBAR."
Is the loft bugged? Is she listening in on him? Who says FUBAR anymore? Except him, of course, and he hadn't said it in years, until this morning. Spelled it out, in fact, at full throttle. "FUBAR?"
"FUBAR," she repeats. She thinks she might be looking at him as if he weren't right in the head, although it's she who's not right in the head. "Fucked up beyond all recognition."
"Repair."
"What?"
"FUBAR means fucked up beyond all repair. Repair, not recognition."
"I hope I'm not beyond repair. Shit." She shakes her head and looks bleakly out the window. "Not with the amount of time and money I've invested in a psychiatrist."
If she'd said she was going to open a doll hospital or become a nun or gorge herself until she could run away and be the fat lady in the circus he wouldn't have been as shocked as he is now. Kate Beckett is seeing a shrink? Laying her soul bare to someone? Completely opening up? "You're in therapy?"
"You make it sound like it's a crime."
"No, no," he protests, looking in vain for some other kind of lifeline. "I was just, er, taken aback."
"I had to go after I was shot. Department regulations."
"Oh. Right. Understandable."
"Most cops go once. Over and out. I'm still there. Eight months now."
He's embarrassed, and floundering a bit, unsure of what he should say. What emerges is, "So you go every month?"
She has turned away from the window and is looking directly at him. "Not every month, every week. Sometimes when things are bad, like yesterday, I go more often than that."
Yesterday. Yesterday was when he and Slaughter had gone to the Twelfth. Oh. Was that what had made it a bad day for her? Enough to propel her to her therapist's office? "Sorry."
"Yeah, well." She looks at her feet.
Her living room feels suffocating. Between them, he thinks, they've sucked all the air out of it. The crackle of their argument is gone and there's a dead space between them.
"Look," he says.
"Look," she says, her word tumbling against his. Against all odds, they're still in synch.
"Go ahead, please."
"I was just going to say let's get back to the case, Castle. It felt like we were getting somewhere. Before."
Before. Right. "Okay." He stops and starts anew. "Do you have any food? I feel like I should put something in my stomach. Fuel my brain."
"Guess I should, too." Especially since she'd flushed away her already meager breakfast in the cafe rest room a few hours ago.
"What do you have?"
"You mean food?"
"Yes. Food. Stuff we eat three times a day. Or more, in my case."
"I might have some cheese." Her brow is furrowed.
"Is it from this century?"
"Probably not."
"Okay, let's order."
"Just a sandwich for me. Turkey, something like that. The deli across the street's pretty good. I'll call them."
He starts for the door. "No, I'll go. I'd like to get a little fresh air, such as it is. Turkey on rye? Lettuce and honey mustard?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
As soon as she hears the elevator doors open she drops onto the sofa. "He remembers my sandwich," she says to a pillow. She's shaky in the emotional aftermath of revealing that she's seeing a therapist. She hadn't planned to, it just happened. A lot of things just happen, even in her tightly-controlled life. Things happen. She loops back into their heated words a few minutes ago and realizes that she never answered his question, "Why didn't you say something?" Maybe she had, indirectly. She'd told him she was totally fucked up. That might explain it. She's too raw right now to tackle the question. Besides, they need to get ahead of this case before Slaughter puts Castle back on the battlefield without any weapon. Probably not even his bullet-proof vest. She can imagine what mockery that s.o.b. would make of that. WRITER.
Since Castle will be back any moment, she makes coffee, and is pouring it when he knocks on the door. "I got some chips, too," he says, walking past her. "I know your limit is usually one, but maybe you'll splurge if we figure this out."
They don't, but they do make a lot of headway. It's after 6:00 when they're interrupted by the sound of "Cowboys From Hell" on Castle's phone. The call, like the one Slaughter had made earlier today, is short.
"I've gotta go meet him," Castle says afterwards, sounding far less excited at the prospect than he would have a day ago.
"When?"
"Quarter to eight. Gotta go home and change though. He says wear all black."
"Really?"
"You know. Less chance of us being seen."
"Uh-huh." Her stomach lurches, and she's starting to regret the sandwich and half a bag of chips. "Where are you meeting him?"
"Hundred and fifty-fifth by the river."
Her stomach moves north. "You know that's a seriously high-crime area, right? So you'll be careful?"
"Not my first case, Beckett. Not even my first bad neighborhood."
"I know. Don't want it to be your last, either."
"Won't be." He's not at all sure, but he won't let on.
"I'll be watching."
"I'm too old for a baby-sitter."
"I'm not baby-sitting you, Castle, just being your back-up, all right? If you want to be mad about this, be mad at Gates."
He shoves the remains of their lunch in a paper bag and drops it in her kitchen wastebasket. "See ya, Beckett."
"I hope not. I'm supposed to be invisible."
"That'll be the day," he says, closing the door on his closing line.
Gates must have left the precinct a while ago, but Beckett knows she has to update her boss. After apologizing for calling at dinnertime, she tells Gates where Castle and Slaughter are meeting, and is rewarded with a low whistle. "Not a great spot, Detective," she says.
"That's what I told him, Sir."
"I'm not entirely enthusiastic about your riding alone. I'd like Ryan and Esposito nearby."
"You would?"
"Yes. I know full well they've been giving Mister Castle a little … help on this case. For a price, I imagine."
Whoa, Gates knows a lot more about their little group than she'd credited her for, but she had come out of IA. And she's smart. "Not money, Sir," Beckett adds feebly, feeling strongly that she should stand up for her boys.
"Of course not. Mister Castle has many other offerings."
"Yes, sir."
"My point, Detective, is that they have a good working knowledge of this case."
"And they have my back. And Castle's."
"Yes. I'll instruct them."
"Thank you, Sir."
"I remind you, though, not to tell any of them anything about the mayor or Finn Rourke."
"My lips are sealed."
She's relieved; she'll feel less apprehensive having the boys close at hand. She'll give Gates time to speak with them, and then she'll call. In the interim, she has to decide what to wear. It'll be black, all right, but nothing like Castle's outfit. This is not a jeans-and-turtleneck stake-out. No way. She stalks into her bedroom and uses a stepladder to get a box from the top shelf of her closet. After rummaging through it for several minutes, she nods approvingly at her selection, and gets dressed.
At 7:30, when the sun is a fat, fuzzy orange ball disappearing behind the buildings on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River, Beckett pulls up to the chain-link fence outside a small abandoned building that's home to a few junkies, a derelict car that's visible through a broken window—how the hell did anyone get that in there? she wonders as she waits—uncountable piles of garbage, and hundreds of rats. Shortly afterwards, Espo and Ryan cruise past and park at the corner about 50 yards in front of her. That's the signal for her to drive three blocks to the area where Castle and Slaughter will be. She's already picked the graffiti-covered overpass column that she'll use for cover. The shadows are deep there at virtually any time of day, and it's almost night now.
She doesn't have to wait long for them to arrive. Slaughter predictably puts his unmarked sedan—which looks like a beater but runs like a Jaguar—in front of a fire hydrant. She can see him animatedly talking to Castle, occasionally throwing his head back and laughing. Castle does not look amused. Slaughter puts his phone to his ear, apparently answering a call, and a moment later gets out of the paint-patched sedan. She tracks him as he walks up the front steps of a grubby brick building, fishes a key out of his pocket, yanks opens the door, and goes inside. So far, at least, Castle is staying put. But just as her anxiety level is beginning to dip she spies two lanky young men, almost certainly gangbangers and definitely packing, approach from the opposite direction and go into the building. It's still unlit and four alarms go off in her head.
Castle has never been armed, but she wonders if Slaughter had insisted on giving him a gun. And what if he has to use it? She weighs her options for only seconds before slipping out of the car, walking quietly to Castle's, and getting in the driver's seat.
"Beckett?" He's gaping at her.
"Shh."
"You changed."
"No kidding," she whispers, trying unsuccessfully to pull her black spandex mini skirt down to a marginally decent length.
"And you're blonde." Still gaping.
He sounds exactly the way he had when she'd pretended to be his Russian girlfriend at that Chinatown poker game a few years ago.
"Yes, I am. Listen. I don't like the look of this."
"Of what?" he says, staring at her sequined tube top.
"This situation, Castle. Are you armed?"
"Yeah."
He's a great target shooter, but that's not the same as using a gun if you're under attack from several sides, and that worries her, too. She brushes an errant strand of platinum fake hair away from her eye. "Who's in there with Slaughter?"
Before he can answer, if he even knows, four men burst out of the same front door that Slaughter had recently opened, and head straight for them. Even in the dim light, their tattoos are visible, and they're not pretty.
Castle doesn't even see her move, yet there she is in his lap, her knees squeezing his hips, her hands gripping his head. She's kissing him as though he were the only man on Earth. At the sound of a hand slapping the hood of the car—at least he thinks that's what it is, but his brain is addled—she presses herself hard against his chest. There's nothing between them but the fine Egyptian cotton of his shirt and the very thin fabric of her top, and he can feel her nipples pressing against his chest. And then she forces his lips open with her tongue. Her very wet, very insistent tongue meets his. His tongue has never been so happy.
"Sherlock?"
Holy hell, it's Slaughter. Castle opens his eyes; Beckett's are an inch away from his, and they're closed. She wiggles in his lap and moans.
"Sherlock?" Slaughter says again. What the fuck?"
TBC
A/N See? I didn't forget about the kiss.