A/N: Thank you all so much for all the great feedback!
Two
At the unpleasant hour of five-fifteen a.m. Kate Beckett smacked her alarm off with a groan. She lay on her stomach with her right arm dangling over the edge of the mattress and her face smashed down into her pillow for a few extra seconds. She knew she was committing one of the cardinal sins of pre-dawn risers (always get up immediately after turning off your alarm or risk falling back to sleep) but she didn't care; her sleep the night before had been fitful at best.
After nearly two full minutes, she forced herself upright and sat on the edge of her bed with a yawn. Her bedroom still dark save the ambient light from the numerals on her alarm clock, she groped on the nightstand until she felt the cool edges of her phone. She held the power button down until the screen illuminated and then returned the item to the nightstand.
As she had not been on call the night before, she afforded herself the luxury of disconnecting for the evening. This was one ritual she insisted on lest she be tempted to check messages or her work email. Turning the phone off shortly before bed seemed the only way to void those temptations.
With her sock-covered feet skimming against the cool floor, Kate shuffled her way into the bathroom and cranked on the shower. Without her contacts in, she made her way bleary-eyed through her morning ritual: lather, rinse, repeat. It wasn't until she brushed her teeth and popped in her corrective lenses before she began to feel remotely awake.
Swathed in her fluffy steel gray robe, Kate returned to her bedroom and scooped up her phone. Two missed text messages from an unknown number; interesting.
When she opened up the message screen, Kate realized with great disappointment that she knew the sender. Sort of, anyway. His name was…Brandon? No. Bradley. Yes, that was it. Brad, the investment banker.
She had drinks with the blonde haired, blue eyed texter two nights prior. Her medical examiner friend Lanie had set up the meet, thinking the two of them would hit it off. Brad was the friend of a man Lanie was currently seeing and, in her friend's idealistic mind, it would be the perfect opportunity for them to double date. Fortunately, Kate had the wherewithal to recommend she meet Brad solo to see if she even liked him before she was roped into a full evening with Lanie and her latest beau.
During her ninety minutes in Brad's presence, Kate couldn't honestly say she found anything particularly wrong with Brad. At least, not in a screamingly obvious way. He was good looking, though at only five-foot-eight she did not feel comfortable being taller than him, especially given her propensity towards several inch heels atop her already five-nine frame. But that she knew to be a superficial and ultimately silly reason, so she pushed it from her mind.
The fact of the matter was she simply didn't like him. There was nothing wrong with him, but she did not feel any desire to see the man again. She just wasn't interested. Their interaction was decent, but she decided that if decent was the most positive thing she could say about the man, then he simply wasn't worth her time.
That, it seemed, was her default setting in recent days. Weeks. Er—Months.
Every man she met—whether it was a set up through friends or someone she bumped into at an event or, rare as it was, at a bar—seemed to fall into the same unimpressive category. For the most part, there was nothing wrong with the men. Their conversations did not offend her, nor did they send up any of her red flags; however, in no way were they great, let alone good.
Because of her job, she had developed a fairly decent set of people skills so she was fully capable of having an intelligent conversation with a stranger. Thus, the majority of her dates did not fall into the terrible category. But, also because of her job, she did not feel the need to waste her precious personal time on something that was merely so-so.
The life a homicide detective was high stress, no doubt. Kate loved her job—truly. She would not change her profession for anything, but when she was off the clock, she wanted to be relaxing. She wanted to have fun and, quite frankly, sitting in a mediocre restaurant with a stock broker prattling on about how the Yankees were doing that season was not her idea of fun. She could have equally as much fun at home on her couch with a book—and that kind of fun didn't involve wearing anything other than pajamas.
By the simplest definition she was in a rut, but she couldn't honestly say she minded. She was happy with where she was and, to her, that was all that mattered.
After deleting Brad's texts without responding, Kate returned to the bathroom and examined her reflection in the mirror. She combed through her now shoulder-length brown locks and nodded approvingly. After her latest trip to the salon her hair was finally back to the chestnut color she was born with; the one she preferred. The cranberry-purple tone she experimented with the year before had certainly been interesting, but not something she planned on repeating any time soon.
After applying her usual under-eye concealer (those dark circles never had a chance to go away with all the late nights she put it in…) mascara and eye liner she swiped some tinted lip balm across her lips and returned to her bedroom to dress.
Moving throughout her closet on auto-pilot, Kate pulled out charcoal pants and a matching blazer with an emerald green blouse for underneath. After dressing, she grabbed a protein bar from the kitchen and her bag from the entryway before heading out for the morning.
Per usual, she arrived at the precinct before her partner. It wasn't that he was late; she preferred to be extra early. That way, she could let her caffeinated beverage do its magic and wake her up gradually while she checked her emails. She wasn't exactly not a morning person, but she preferred not to speak to anyone before seven a.m. if she could avoid it. Particularly not her irritating-at-times cohort, who frustratingly learned which of her buttons to press rather quickly during their six month tenure.
Six months. Sometimes the duration of their partnership surprised even her. From her first impression of him, she figured they wouldn't last six weeks, but as it turned out she had unfairly judged him. He was a handful, no doubt, but the tales of his crazy and erratic behavior had been greatly exaggerated. Fortunately, his reputation of being a decent investigator was not and thus their partnership remained.
A little less than an hour and a full cup of coffee later, her desk mate arrived sans his typical morning greeting. She had grown so accustomed to his morning hello she almost startled when she spotted his large frame plopping down across from her. Curious, she glanced around her monitor and noticed numerous worry lines creasing his forehead. He studied the cell phone in his palm a bit too intently for such an early hour.
If one thing could be undeniably said about her partner it was that Richard Castle was generally a pretty agreeable and relaxed guy. It really took a lot to get him riled up. In fact, Kate felt she could count on one hand the times he'd been upset or overtly concerned in six months. The majority of those times related to his daughter. One instance revolved around him receiving a phone call to pick her up from school ASAP. As Kate later found out, she'd fallen in gym class and needed three stitches in her lip, but from the way Castle acted one would have thought the pre-teen needed a kidney transplant.
Thus, seeing such worry on her partner's face concerned Kate slightly. "Morning Castle. Everything alright?"
"Wha-ah-" He startled and looked up at her. When their eyes met, his face relaxed slightly. "Ah, Beckett, Hi. No, no I'm fine; everything's fine."
Though he turned back to his phone, Kate continued to look at him for several moments longer. She doubted that everything was "fine" as the tone of his voice was much more frazzled than usual, but she wouldn't press, particularly not if it was a personal matter. As he was more of a heart-on-his-sleeve type she knew he'd tell her before the morning was out if something was truly bothering him.
For the most part, Kate's morning progressed without incident. After closing a case the day before, she predetermined that day to be a paperwork catch-up day. She had every intention to finish her paperwork from that case in the morning and subsequently dedicate the afternoon to beginning her preparation for being a trial witness the following week, but as usual things did not go as she planned.
The first few hours went well and she was able to complete a good portion of her arrest paperwork, but shortly before ten she was interrupted by the sound of a particularly mournful sigh coming from the adjoining desk. Setting her pen down, Kate peered around her computer monitor to observe her partner, wrinkled brow and all, staring at his phone for the umpteenth time that morning.
Leaning back in her chair, Kate let out a slow breath. Damn him for doing this to her; for getting under her skin.
On the average day, her partner reminded her of one of those wind-up denture gag gifts: a constantly chattering object that hopped and jolted all day long. He rarely if ever sat still. He was always up and moving around or crushing a stress ball between his sturdy fists and then tossing it up in the air. In addition, he interrupted her at least two or three times an hour to ask a question or point out something ridiculous.
Typically, on a day she was trying to get paperwork done, his hyperactive behavior irritated the shit out of her and thus she should have been happy he had been perfectly calm, seated and quiet all day long, but she wasn't happy; she was concerned.
Somehow—and she would be the very first to admit she had no idea how—in their six months together she'd grown to…well, "like" wasn't the right term. Respect him as a detective, certainly. Care about his wellbeing as her partner, of course. But she also had grown to care about him in a way that was not quite up to friendship level, but was certainly above the level she cared for many of the other detectives working on her floor.
"Detective Beckett?"
Kate's concern for Castle was interrupted by Detective Anderson approaching. She glanced up at him with a smile. "Hate to do this to you, but would you mind doing me a favor? McCreary went home sick and I need to follow up some leads on my case. Would you and Castle mind doing a canvass for me?"
"Sure." Kate nodded at him. She was always willing to do a favor for Anderson, especially when she wasn't sure when she'd need one in return. "Castle, you mind?"
"No, not at all." Castle, now focused and worry-line free, also smiled. "What's the case?"
"Jane Doe from overnight; stabbed and left by a dumpster, but she wasn't robbed." Anderson explained as he led the way over to his and McCreary's murder board. "Her ID came back and I'm thinking someone in her building might have seen something? I need to track down her boyfriend, but if you guys could meet some uniforms at her place…"
"No problem," Kate assured him.
After reviewing a few more details with Anderson, Kate returned to her desk to grab her jacket and keys. When she pulled her hair from the jacket collar, she noticed her partner frowning over his cell phone once more. Feeling an inexplicable urge to lighten his mood, she dangled the keys out at arm's length. "Wanna drive, Castle?"
"Oh, wha—yeah," he nodded and reached out for the keys. "Thanks."
He focused on his phone during their trip down the elevator and to the underground garage. Just a few feet from the vehicle he stopped walking abruptly and cursed. "Just, ah, I'm sorry Beckett just one second. I need to make a quick call."
"Sure," she told him casually. Then, she watched as he walked up the ramp towards street level, presumably to get enough reception to make the call. Between the echoes of the garage and the noise from the busy Manhattan traffic, Kate could not hear any of his conversation, but from his pacing, brow-rubbing and choppy gestures she deduced it was not a pleasant exchange.
A few minutes later, he silently returned to their cruiser, climbed inside the driver's seat and turned over the engine without a word. Kate waited patiently for him to speak, but he did not, so as they pulled into traffic she asked, "Is everything okay?"
"Ah, yeah, it's just…" he sighed and pounded his palm against the steering wheel. "My ex-wife Meredith was supposed to pick up our daughter at school today but she just texted me to say she was canceling…per usual," he added with the air of a growl.
Kate nodded; suddenly it was all making sense. Though she was not one to pry into the lives of her coworkers, through their working relationship she had gained a reasonable amount of knowledge about her partner. She knew he was divorced with a pre-teen daughter he had sole custody of. She had even met the girl twice when she visited the precinct with Castle's mother, who evidently helped with childcare when he was busy working. She knew Castle's mother, the only parent in his life, worked in theater, though Kate wasn't entirely certain in what capacity, but she had absolutely no knowledge of his ex-wife other than that she existed.
"I'm sorry," Kate told him gently.
"Thanks." He was silent for only a few seconds before he continued. "It's just—she always does this, you know? She lives in California and she doesn't come back to New York much, but when she does Alexis gets really excited to see her. Meredith will call and they'll make plans and then…she never follows through and…I…I just feel like it's all my fault."
Kate glanced over at her guilt-laden partner curiously. "Why? How could it be?"
"Because I let it happen! Every time Meredith makes promises…every time she breaks them and then Alexis is upset for weeks… I should just put my foot down and not let Meredith see her, but how can I do that? She's Alexis's mother; she has a right to see her but…I just…"
Kate chewed on her bottom lip as she considered Castle's confessions. Not having a child of her own, it was difficult for her to put herself in Castle's shoes entirely, but she understood where he was coming from. He felt it was his duty to protect his daughter at all costs, but at the same time keeping her away from her mother would make him the bad guy in more ways than one.
"It's still not your fault, Castle. It's unfortunate that Alexis's mother acts the way she does, but you can't control that. Just explain to Alexis that something came up and her mother can't make it."
After easing the vehicle to a stop at a red light, Castle glanced over at his partner. "Easy for you to say. You don't have to look her in the eyes as you do it."
She smiled softly at him. "Touché."
As they sat in silence, Kate continued to think about Castle's words. From his comments, he implied he and the mother of his child had been separated for some time. This, she supposed, made sense, but the curious investigator in her wanted to know more. Despite herself she asked, "So, ah, you guys haven't been together for a while then?"
"Eight years next month," he informed her.
Oh wow, Kate thought. She hadn't expected it to be quite that long. Given what she knew about his daughter, that would have meant the young girl's mother left before she even began schooling; how sad for her. As her partner pressed on the gas pedal, Kate cleared her throat. "That's a-"
Her thought was stolen by a scream as the corner of her eye caught a large pickup truck barreling their way. When it ran the red light, the black Silverado crushed into the front passenger side of the cruiser, spinning it nearly one hundred and eighty degrees in the process. Immediately, all traffic in the intersection came to an angry, honking halt.
Castle blinked with a groan. What the hell just happened? Why was he suddenly facing the other direction? And what was that god-awful crunching sound?
In a millisecond, the whole horrible scene came into view. The obliterated right front end of their sedan. Auto parts strewn all over the road. Throbbing pain in his neck. And the groans of the woman beside him.
Oh god, Beckett!
"Beckett? Beckett, are you alright? Kate! Kate!" He called out, turning his head in her direction to see her facing away from him, the window beside her completely smashed out. Small squares of the tempered auto glass littered their laps like confetti and the unpleasant metallic and dusty smell from their deployed air bags filled the air.
"'m fine, Castle." His partner mumbled, slowly regaining her senses.
Kate squeezed her eyes shut tight and breathed in deep to assess her body for potential injuries. She wiggled her toes. Fine. She moved her ankles. Fine. Her knees. Fine. Her fingers, wrists and elbows—all fine. Gingerly, she rotated her neck so that she faced forward in the car. Well, that didn't feel great, but it didn't hurt enough to indicate serious injury. Turning her head all the way to her left, she asked, "What the hell happened?"
"I'm not entirely sure," Castle sighed. He leaned forward and craned his neck so he could look out the window of the front passenger door. The windshield was too difficult to look out as it was spidered with cracks. From his position, he could barely glimpse the smashed front end of the pick-up spun towards them a few feet away. "If I had to guess, I'd say that guy T-boned us when he ran the red light."
"Asshole."
Castle couldn't help but chuckle when he heard the curse exit her mouth. "Yeah, you can say that again. Hey I think it's been about…oh, seven or eight years since I've written a traffic ticket, but I'll more than happily break out my ticket book again for this guy."
"Really," she muttered in agreement. Without thinking, she reached out for the latch on the passenger side door. She pulled on it once, twice, then three times to no avail. Groaning, she turned back to Castle. "My door's jammed."
"Ah, okay. Let me see if I can open it from the outside."
Upon opening his door, Caste swung his feet out just as quickly as he normally would, but then immediately slowed his pace. Oh, yeah; that was going to hurt tomorrow. Using the door as leverage, he pulled himself to a standing position and walked gingerly around to the other side of the vehicle. When it came into full view, he let out an audible gasp. Simply put: it looked awful.
As a typical Manhattan resident who relied mostly on public transportation, Castle had previously been in just one car accident, which was much more of a fender-bender than an accident. True, he had rammed into the back of a taxi so hard that it knocked the bumper off both cars, but no injuries had been sustained in that accident and both vehicle were able to drive away. The same could not be said for their Crown Victoria.
Castle examined the damage as the noxious scent of engine fluids mixed with gasoline entered his nostrils. The entire front right side of the hood had been obliterated. The wheel crushed and deflated; the axel clearly broken. Fortunately, it appeared the wheel had taken the brunt of the injury and the passenger side door was merely bent at the part where it connected to the front of the car. Had the truck hit even a few inches further back…well, the mere thought of that made Castle's stomach roll uncomfortably.
Shaking his head to rid his mind of the images, he walked over to the passenger side door and gave it a hearty pull, but it didn't budge. The hinging was too damaged for the door to open. Gazing at his partner through the broken out window, he shrugged. "Sorry; you'll have to get out the driver's side."
She nodded and scooted across the seat, but Castle hurried around, calling out that he would help her. She insisted she was fine, but when she finally climbed out of the vehicle she yelped in discomfort. Her whole body felt like…well, like she'd just been in a car accident.
His face wrought with concern, Castle asked her frantically, "Are you okay? Where does it hurt? Do you think you should sit down?"
He reached out for her right elbow, but she batted his hand away. "I'm fine, Castle; really. Just a little banged up."
Castle examined the right side of her face and saw a bleeding cut just above her eyebrow. "More than a little. God, Kate; I'm so sorry."
Her brow wrinkled at him. "Why?"
"Because I was driving..."
She let out an airy laugh of disbelief. "Castle, you didn't cause the accident. The guy ran the light. I could have just as easily been the one driving." Noticing the level of concern remaining on his face, Kate nodded towards the offending pick-up. "Why don't you go see if the driver is ok? I'll call for backup."
Half an hour later, the detective pair stood on the sidewalk as two tow trucks maneuvered through the now completely snarled traffic to remove the damaged vehicles. As it turned out, the driver of the pickup had been under the influence of some unknown drug when he rammed into the detectives' cruiser. Thus, he would be arrested and charged with numerous offenses. Fortunately, no one else had been hurt as a result of his actions.
Only when the mutilated sedan was secured on the tow truck did Castle gasp and reach his hand into his pocket for his phone. "Shit, what time is it? Alexis only has a half day of school today and-"
"Go," Kate informed him. He gave her a hesitant look, but she nodded. "It's fine. I'll finish up here and grab a ride back to the twelfth."
"You're sure?" he asked. Again, she nodded. "Okay. Thanks Beckett. Sorry again about the-"
"Castle," she cut off his fourth apology of the hour, "it wasn't your fault."
He gave her a fractured smile. "Still…I feel bad about your head."
"It's fine; really."
"I, ah, I…" He stammered before reaching out his arms and pulling her into a somewhat awkward hug.
Too stunned by his actions, Kate's arms hung limp at her sides for a moment before she slowly bent her elbows and rested her hands at his shoulder blades. This unexpected embrace was the first time in their partnership they'd touched more than the duration of a handshake and, quite honestly, she wasn't sure where it was coming from.
But then he squeezed her a little tighter, and she unconsciously took half a step into the embrace. His body felt so warm around hers; so strong. It was…unexpected.
Then, after another second, it was over. He pulled back, nodded a thank you to her, and then hurried off down the street. Kate watched him go for half a block before turning back to the scene in front of her with a sigh. Now, she had even more paperwork to do and, unfortunately, it wasn't going to do itself.