14: Time for a change
Castle, in default of a better idea, such as instant emigration to Fiji (he's sure it's nice there, and more importantly there aren't that many flights, though he'd miss football, baseball and basketball. He could learn to like rugby, he supposes, though it seems a bit…complicated) pulls himself together and spends a little extra time trying to work out how to get out of the mess he's got himself into, without the undesirable outcome of succeeding in defusing Beckett and then being killed by the boys, which wouldn't be success at all. Naturally, it doesn't work. He is no better supplied with good ideas when he's artfully mussed his hair, in order to look more than usually adorable, than when he stepped out of bed.
Instead, he makes coffee, adds some – hopefully bad-temper soothing – vanilla to Beckett's cup, and waits in trepidation. He can hear the shower running. He hopes, very strongly, that it's washing away the first flush of anger. And the second. And maybe the third, fourth and fifth as well. He'd known that the three of them drunkenly deciding that they should take care of Beckett was a bad plan. He'd just liked the thought of her being hurt less than he liked the thought of her finding out about it. He may be on the point of discovering for himself whether he had his priorities right, he muses miserably. He can see the future and it involves pain.
The shower has stopped. A hairdryer has begun. This does not improve his mood. Grooming may well equal intimidation. Not that Beckett needs to be groomed to intimidate anyone. She just needs to look at them with that terrifying stare. She could be wearing denim cut-offs or an itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka-dot bikini and intimidate the whole world around her. That was not a good thought, at this point. Thinking of Beckett in bikinis is not going to help. Oh God, they are so dead.
The only reason the steps down the stairs are not the forceful clacking he is expecting is because it isn't Beckett. It's Alexis, about whom he had momentarily forgotten. Maybe her presence will protect him.
And maybe not. Alexis has a jacket over her arm and her purse. Alexis – traitor, even if she doesn't know it – is clearly going out.
"Bye Dad. I'm off to meet friends. See you later." Not if Beckett has her way. All that Alexis will see is his cold dead corpse. Eviscerated. Right now he really wishes he hadn't researched gorily gruesome methods of killing, because he can imagine exactly how the victims felt. It's how he's going to feel in around – two seconds, because Beckett is arriving right now.
"So," she says, reaching the kitchen. "Start talking."
"Coffee?" he says hopefully, instead, and pushes the mug towards her. She takes it, which is at least a minor improvement on his feverish imaginings.
"Talk." He's not going to get out of this, is he? "And if you had any thoughts of protecting the other two, forget it. I'll be talking to them too." Dead. Definitely dead. And he hasn't updated his funeral arrangements in months. (It's a procrastination technique. Every time he can't think of how to kill off a character, he updates his funeral arrangements.)
"We're not babysitting you," he rushes out. An eyebrow rises. "It's just being your partner. Same as Espo looks after Ryan and vice versa."
"Ri-ight. So why exactly will Espo kill you for letting" – oh, ow, that carried more weight than a Giants linebacker – "me get hurt? Huh? I don't see you killing Espo – even if you could" – ouch, that's not kind, even if it's true – "if Ryan got hurt." She stops. Castle recognises the silence unfolding before him as that of the interrogation room. Unfortunately he is no more proof against filling it than the most incompetent of criminals.
"After Coonan," he starts, and stops again. "I wasn't any use, Beckett. Coonan got the drop on me and there was nothing I could do to stop him or to help or to find anything. So we got talking and we agreed that the others would do a bit of training with me so I'd be more use." He feels – and probably looks – hangdog. "But the deal was that I was supposed to be as near to you as Ryan would be to Espo. And I wasn't."
"I see," Beckett says coldly. "So you weren't any use with Coonan." Her eyes flare with – with that same fury as when he'd admitted going into her building after the watch? Huh? "No use? You broke his nose and gave me a clean shot. You put up a hundred thousand dollars to try to catch the man who killed my mother – and we did, we just don't know why. You pointed Lanie at Dr Murray. Oh no, Castle. You weren't any use? You boneheaded idiot! What are you playing at? I should slap your stupid face silly for that. It might let a little light into your stupid thick head."
He reflexively ducks away. She's not done.
"Didn't you get it when I told you I liked you pulling my pigtails? What part of having you around makes it a little more fun didn't you understand? How dumb are you? You don't need to be a bodyguard, you stupid dumb – man! I don't need a freaking bodyguard! And when I get my hands on those two idiots who gave you that idea they'll need the bodyguard because I will have their guts for garters." Castle watches with amazement as she throws her hands up in a gesture of incandescent fury. "I can't deal with this level of idiocy," she yells. "No babysitting. No looking after me. If I tell you to stay in the car you stay in the freaking car, okay?"
"Nope."
"You do not get to say nope to me." Castle thinks that the Atlantic may just part to allow Beckett to walk dry-shod to Ireland, should she tell it to in that tone.
"Actually, I do." Maybe he really does have a death-wish. "I'm not staying in the car if you're running into dangerous situations. I'm going too."
"I'm the cop. Not you. You don't get it. You do not go running into dangerous situations and get hurt. Not on my watch."
"I mended your watch," Castle says unhelpfully.
"You, you overly chivalrous idiot, went charging into a burning building to get me out and then went back to get things that don't matter. If you think I'm letting you do that again you're out of your non-existent mind. You will stay in the car where you can't get hurt."
"Shan't," Castle says childishly. "And you can't make me." Beckett turns an interesting shade of purple and looks as if she's about to explode.
"I can so make you."
"Not any more. I'm wise to your handcuffing ways, Beckett – and all the training the boys have put me through has been very good for my strength. I don't think you can force me to stay in the car and I'm not going to." That's interesting. He didn't know that people could go that shade of scarlet-streaked purple and still live. He returns to the attack. "I don't like it when you get hurt, but I don't tell you to stay in the car, do I?"
"You're not a cop. I am. You are not going to do stupid things and take stupid risks and get hurt."
"I don't do stupid things." Beckett's mouth drops wide open. Castle takes advantage of her speechlessness. "I don't. And if you just stop and think for a minute rather than yelling at me you'll realise it." Her mouth opens and shuts and produces no sound at all. "Now what's really going on here?" He smiles widely and beautifully and angelically – and very, very irritatingly. "Oh, I get it," he says smugly. "You're worried about me. Aw, Beckett, how sweet. You care."
"Of course I care, you" – she stops, very abruptly, blushes furiously and refuses to look at him. Castle hops off his bar stool, rounds the counter and puts his arms round her. When she doesn't simply curl in he picks her up by the waist, turns her into him and gently but inexorably pulls her closer, not stopping till she's plastered over his front.
"I know," he says softly. "Come here." Come here, he muses, is one of those happily pointless statements that fills silence while meaning very little except let me hold you and make it all better. Which of course means everything. "You know I do too." He leaves it at that. He also leaves Beckett in his arms, where she really should be a lot more often. She's just the right size to lean on his shoulder and be swamped in his bulk. If it wasn't for the fact that she probably knows a dozen ways to kill him without breaking a sweat it would be very romantic: broad and strong with his girl in his arms. As it is, it might be romantic but she's hardly a delicate little flower who needs him leaping tall buildings in a single bound and catching bullets in his teeth. Just as well: he'd hate it if she were a clinging vine. Though a little more clinging wouldn't hurt…
"Where are you going, Beckett?" He can hear himself whining as she tugs away, and stops it.
"I have real estate agents to see. Remember?"
"You have to wait for me. You promised we'd both go."
"I didn't."
"You implied the promise."
"You can't imply a promise. There's no such thing as a verbal contract."
"Can you tell Gina that? She uses every word against me."
"If you turned your chapters in on time she wouldn't."
"Genius can't be rushed, Beckett."
"So what's your excuse, then?" Castle splutters. "You've got fifteen minutes. Then I'm going whether you're ready or not." Unfair, Beckett. Very, very unfair. He dashes for the shower. It's the fastest he's ever got ready in his life.
After three useless rental agents, Castle is bored. Very, very bored. He's seen several apartments which would be just fine for Beckett – their main attraction being that they're all less than half a mile from Broome Street. Beckett turns them all down without even wanting to visit them.
The fourth agent is initially no more promising. Its range, to Castle's jaundiced and well-funded eye, is very limited: not a luxurious loft in sight. The woman passing over details is a bottle blonde with a strong New Jersey accent and a skirt that's half a size too short and tight. If he still signed chests, he could have listed his entire oeuvre without lacking for space. The agency is down-at-heel. Even the chairs are cheap, nasty and uncomfortable. He declines coffee, for fear of the coffee proving stronger than he is. Beckett, naturally, accepts, and appears to have glared the fluid into terrified submission to her throat and digestion. It's a mystery to him, therefore, why Beckett should be so much more interested in these apartments than any of the others. They're all so – bare. Skeletal, really, the bones of a structure but not at all a home. Naked brickwork, tall, transparent windows. Even in the furnished photos, they look chilly and empty.
The apartment Beckett seems most interested in doesn't appeal to Castle at all. It's split-level, one large open-plan space below, bedroom and bathroom above. Bare brickwork, very nearly full height windows, cool pale colours where there aren't bricks. It's also far too far away from his loft for his taste.
"I'd like to see this one," he hears Beckett say, and doesn't quite conceal his dismay. "Can we go now?"
"Sure," the agent says, New Jersey twang on full display.
Castle is relegated to the back seat while Beckett and the blonde discuss technicalities such as air conditioning, doormen (and desirable lack thereof), water pressure, elevators, shower versus bath (both) and possible entry dates should it be suitable, about which Beckett is notably non-committal. Since he has no part to play in this conversation, and in fact is only coming with Beckett so that if she gets tired or cross or hurt he can take her home safely or to the hospital again (he is not stupid enough to say any of this) or to offer an opinion if asked (he won't be), he turns his mind to wondering what's so good about these apartments that wasn't just as good and much more cosy and comforting in the last twenty sets of details.
Light dawns. Castle smiles smugly to himself at having worked out the reasoning and also having peeled another little piece of the Beckett onion. (He just hopes that peeling Beckett-onions does not entail as much weeping as peeling real ones.) Beckett is not notably fluffy, sappy, or into unnecessary fuss and bustle. She'd said so. She had said, in fact, that she needed space and privacy, and he already knows that she needs time on her own. It stands to reason that she wouldn't want an apartment full of fussy nooks and corners, frou-frou décor and bric-a-brac. She wants space, and light, and clear straight lines. Physical space, and mental space to clear her head. Her last apartment had been like that too. Hmm. Interesting.
It's even more interesting, since her objection to staying longer at his had been the noise and fuss of his over-exuberant family (for which read his mother, really) but not him. Which is very strange indeed, since she has from time to time described him in terms which really would not incline him to believe that he doesn't disturb her composure or serenity. Nine year old on a sugar rush. Cocker spaniel. Etc. Except that she had more or less said that he doesn't. Hmm. Exceedingly interesting, Dr Watson. Exceedingly.
He knows from the moment they walk in behind the agent that Beckett wants this apartment. Admittedly, that's only because he's watched Beckett like a hawk for a year and a half and he knows her tiniest tells. The agent hasn't a clue, just like suspects never have a clue. The agent, in fact, is massively worried that Beckett hates it and there will be no commission. Beckett simply keeps on looking around and making depressingly neutral-to-chilly noises of no commitment whatsoever. Castle looks on in astonishment as the agent offers a slight reduction in the rent, which appears to fall on stony ground, a moving-in date of not a month, as had first been offered, but in two weeks' time, and the assurance that before Beckett moved in there would have been a full deep clean. Beckett sucks her teeth and hums dispiritingly. The estate agent's perky outline de-perks.
"It's not exactly what I was looking for," Beckett says. Castle would love to yell liar, but he doesn't think that it would be helpful either to Beckett's living arrangements or indeed to his continued living, with or without arrangements. She turns towards the door. "I suppose it will do, though. You'll put the changes you agreed in writing, won't you?"
The agent, who is now cowed and drooping, nods vigorously. "Sure, Ms Beckett. You'll have them right away."
"Thanks," Beckett says briskly. "I want to start moving in no more than two weeks from now. That won't be a problem, will it?" That does not really sound like a question.
"Oh no, Ms Beckett. Not at all."
"Good. Let's go back to your office and get the paperwork sorted out."
Castle trails along behind, a little – actually, a lot – depressed. He understands why Beckett needs to get out (and curses his mother, whose words, he is pretty sure, provided a rather earlier impetus than he would have liked) of the loft, but he really, really likes Beckett sneaking into his bed and snuggling up to him and being there in the morning when he wakes and now there's an end date to that. It's not fair. He can't just spend every other night over at Beckett's new place: that's not a good plan. He has to look after Alexis. He's a good parent and he's staying a good parent. It's not as if he doesn't know what hands-off parenting looks like – and he's not being painted into that portrait. No way. But he does wish that he could have both permanent Beckett and good parenting.
On the other hand… His natural optimism reasserts itself. Even if it's not many nights, there need be no sneaking around. No embarrassment. No need to hide. No need (he grins wolfishly at the prospect) to be quiet. There are a number of advantages, in fact. Fewer than if she just stayed with him, but still, a good number.
Paperwork is swiftly dealt with, and Beckett slashes her final signature on to the papers with aplomb. "Done," she says definitively. "Thank you."
"I'll e-mail you the moving date."
"Thanks."
"That was okay," Beckett notes. "All sorted out." Castle looks down at her – she's been wearing flats all the time, presumably to reduce the risk of further injury – and observes a certain degree of tiredness and a slight stiffness to her posture.
"Yeah. Let's go home, Beckett." He folds a hand gently over hers. Her fingers wrap around his in return. The fingers don't leave his grasp, except for the small necessities of getting in and out of cabs, until they are back at the loft.
"Now what?" he asks.
"Coffee. Wash away that" –
"Monkey pee in battery acid?"
"Repetition, Castle. You use that phrase about machine coffee every time."
"Repetition? What is this, Just A Minute?"
"What?"
"Just A Minute. TV show, in the Fifties."
"So? What's that got to do with anything?"
"You had to speak for a minute without repetition, hesitation, or deviation." Beckett quirks an eyebrow at him.
"So if it was in the Fifties, how do you know about it? You're old" – he squawks – "but not quite that old."
"Reruns," Castle says bitterly. "Do you know how many reruns theatre people watch?"
"Ah," Beckett says, knowingly. "That explains it."
"Explains what?"
"Your old-fashioned ways."
"What?" Beckett smirks annoyingly. "I am a very modern man." She smirks more widely. "I am."
"Of course you are, Castle," she says patronisingly. "That's why you insist on paying for lunch unless I bribe the waiting staff beforehand" –
"You do what? What d'you do that for?"
"So I get to pay for lunch occasionally."
"I don't want you to pay for my lunch. I wanna pay for your lunch."
"And that's why I bribe the waiting staff," Beckett says as if it's a foregone conclusion that she should sidestep his desire to be generous all the time. "Sometimes I need to pay. Otherwise it's one-sided." Castle only just doesn't say I want it to be one-sided. I want to pay for things. I want to give you everything. That discussion is never, ever, going to go well. The trays in Michael's shop float through his head. That discussion wouldn't go well right now either, not least because it's sent his brain into complete incoherence. It's too soon. Really it is. Really. They aren't even exactly dating yet.
And, of course, Beckett will be moving out again in two weeks. His hand tightens on hers. She winces slightly, and he consciously relaxes his grip, lets go of her hand entirely and puts his arm round her instead. He suddenly feels the need simply to hold her close, while he can.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers.
As a result of travel plans and suchlike, posting may be at odd times for the next few days. Sorry.