Author's Note: If nothing else, this fic is teaching me how to juggle multiple plot points all at once. Keep reading and reviewing!
The Twelfth…
Most of the time, the white dry-erase board that stood adjacent to Kate Beckett's desk was a safe haven. Every tidbit in an investigation – every name, every date, every instance in a particular timeline – was laid out for her and Detectives Ryan and Esposito to see, and almost without fail, having everything laid out like this led to that a-ha! moment.
Alas, there was no such moment right now. Just an incredibly gruesome photograph of the victim, a large railroad spike still splitting into his head like he was mounted to a rotisserie spool. Lanie had managed to get a positive ID – the victim was a 43-year-old construction worker named Marc Velazquez – and Ryan and Esposito were off to contact next-of-kin.
But the victim's ID was all Kate had to go on. No matter how intently she stared at the murder board, no matter how hard she bit her lower lip, the big break wasn't coming. Marc's financials were normal, he had little family to speak of, and outside of his job, there was hardly anything remarkable about this man.
It made discovering who drove a large hunk of metal through his skull maddening.
Kate's concentration broke when she noticed Castle standing to her right, two mugs of freshly-brewed coffee in his hands. She had been angry at him the previous week when he'd had a high-end espresso machine delivered to the precinct – after saying their break room coffee was like "a monkey peed in battery acid" – but after the first mug he made for her, to perfection, she let it go.
Now she accepted his offering with a smile, savoring that first sip. It wasn't quite her regular order, but damn if it wasn't what she needed right now.
"Thank you," she said.
"Hey," Faith bolted from one of the desks behind Kate's, approaching the murder board with a quirked brow, "how come you never make me coffee?"
Castle shrugged. "You're more of a whiskey and tequila girl."
"True," Faith said with a shrug, ignoring the quizzical glance Kate threw her way and approaching the murder board. "So…we got a name for this guy. What else?"
"Just one hell of a mess," Castle said.
"I hate to admit it," Kate shook her head, "but Castle's right. We just got an ID. There are no prints or anything else on the murder weapon, and trace evidence at the scene was practically nonexistent. CSU's going over the place again, but they won't find anything."
Castle shook his head, sipping at his own coffee. "Starting to think this may be a 'what killed Marc' instead of a 'who'."
"Yeah, well, if that's the case, I'm sending you home," Kate said, placing a hand on Castle's chest before he could mount a protest. "You know the rules, Castle. You shadow me on murder cases. You witness interrogations, you even add your insight when it's not some half-baked theory that your editors would toss into the trash. But when it spills into my other life, you step aside. Got it?"
"While I appreciate your concern for my well-being," Castle said, smirking at the annoyed glare the detective shot his way, "need I remind you of how we met?"
"Sorry, Ricky," Faith folded her arms over her chest, "I'm with Detective B on this one."
Before Castle could respond, the elevator doors opened. The writer and the two Slayers turned, expecting it to be Detectives Ryan and Esposito returning from notifying Marc's sister of his death – but instead, they were met with a diminutive blonde woman who walked onto the bullpen floor with a black shoulder bag and a confused look on her face.
"Excuse me," she said to a uniformed officer who passed by, "I'm looking for a Detective Beckett?"
"That's me," Kate said, pushing her way past Castle and approaching the blonde. They shook hands once the two women were within inches of each other, and Kate arched a brow when she noticed the blonde's grip was as tight as her own. "What can I do for you?"
"Well, that's a bit of a long—"
"Hey, B."
The blonde looked over Kate's shoulder, her brow furrowing slightly when she saw Faith standing behind the detective with a quirked brow and that shit-eating smirk that the blonde had so often wanted to smack off her face.
"Faith," Buffy said, shifting the weight between her feet as her shoulders briefly hunched. "Didn't expect to see you in a police station." The blonde glanced back at Kate. "What did she do this time?"
Kate glanced between the two women. "You know each other."
"Kate Beckett," Faith shrugged, "meet Buffy Summers."
"The Buffy Summers?!" Castle exclaimed loud enough to get the attention of the entire bullpen, approaching the trio of women with all the glee of a nine-year-old on a sugar rush in the middle of a Toys-R-Us. He clasped his hands together and glanced at Kate. "You didn't tell me she was coming!"
Buffy quirked a brow. "I'm guessing you're Richard Castle."
Castle blinked, taken aback even as a sideways grin crept onto his face. "You've heard of me."
"Yeah, Giles warned me about you." Ignoring the frown that grew on the writer's face, Buffy lifted the shoulder bag off of herself and tossed it onto an empty desk to her left. "So…got anywhere we can talk? Slayer-to-Slayer…" Her eyes again found Faith. "…to-Slayer?"
"Faith, take Ms. Summers to Interrogation 2," Kate said before grabbing Castle by his ear and tugging until they reached the break room. Castle's over-exaggerated howl of pain went largely ignored throughout the bullpen, though a couple uniforms in the corner snickered and laughed. By the time they entered the break room, Kate let go of his ear and shut the door.
"You know," Castle said with a cringe, rubbing his ear, "if you're gonna keep doing that, you should know that my safe word is 'apples'."
"Go home, Rick."
"What?" Castle frowned. "Why?"
"You know who Ms. Summers is, which means you probably know that if she's in New York, then something big is about to go down." Kate closed the distance between the two of them, her expression softening. "I can't let you in on this. It's too dangerous."
"I appreciate your concern—"
"No, Rick." Kate shook her head and grabbed the lapels of Castle's blazer. "Following me on police business is dangerous enough. I'm not gonna be the one to tell Alexis that she lost her father because some minion of Hell got him."
Castle took a step closer, cocking his head to the side. "You care about me."
"Castle, not now…"
"No, you're right." Castle shook his head. "I don't like it, but you're right. So I'll go. But if you need anything, you call me. Even if it's just to talk."
Interrogation Two…
"You look good, B."
"Look, Faith, no offense," Buffy shook her head, "but I'm not really here for a social visit."
"Didn't think you were," Faith shrugged.
Though the pair had called a truce years ago, particularly when they fought The First and helped closed the Sunnydale Hellmouth – which had the little side effect of leveling the entire town – there was still an underlying tension. Faith's murderous past, as well as her personal vendetta against Buffy, was still a sore spot between them, even if they didn't actually give voice to their thoughts.
So the pair sat in awkward silence in the middle of one of the Twelfth Precinct's interrogation rooms – known by many in the bullpen as The Box. A harsh fluorescent light flickered on the ceiling, and Faith stared at the microphone that poked out of the center of the table.
"That's quite the theory you've got," Buffy finally broke the silence.
"Yeah, well…I hope I'm wrong."
The door opened, and Kate Beckett walked through before kicking the door shut with her black heels. She paced around the table, taking a few moments to compose herself before reaching over and disconnecting the mic.
This definitely wasn't going to be her usual interrogation.
"Four nights ago," she began, "Faith found the body of Officer Allison Hastings in an alley off of 53rd. Chest sliced open, sternum snapped in two, heart missing. Faith fought briefly with the attacker, before noticing that she was going up against a human."
"Senator Bracken," Buffy said with a nod. "And Faith thinks he's getting the ball rolling on Ascension."
"Crazy as it sounds," Kate leaned against the wall near the two-way mirror, folding her arms over her chest, "at this point, I don't have a better theory. Then, this morning we found the body of a Marc Velaqzuez, and it's pretty clear his death was less than normal."
Buffy frowned. "Any connection to Bracken or Officer Hastings?"
"No." Kate shook her head. "Right now, all we've got on Velazquez was how he died. Railroad spike through his head."
Buffy sat up a little straighter. "What?"
The blonde pushed herself out of her chair, hands wringing together as she began pacing back and forth in front of the table. She ignored the curious side glance exchanged between Kate and Faith, shaking her head and chewing on her lip.
"B, what's up?" Faith shook her head. "What's got you all wigged?"
"You mean you don't know?"
Kate frowned and approached the interrogation table. "Know what?"
"That's how Spike got his name." Buffy sighed, her voice shaky with the admission. "When he ran with Angelus, Darla, and Drusilla. The railroad spike was his favorite technique."
"Wait a sec," Faith stood up as well. "Spike's dead. Again."
Kate pushed herself off the wall, running her fingers through her short, red-dyed locks. "Okay, wait, slow down. Who's Spike?"
Faith glanced over her shoulder. "What, Angel hasn't told you?"
Buffy's frown deepened. "You know Angel?"
Midtown…
Even as she lapped at her half-vanilla/half-chocolate ice cream cone, Alexis Castle couldn't help but study her father; specifically, the way his eyes weren't quite as bright as usual and the fact that he'd barely touched his own cone in the twenty minutes since paying for them.
Coming out for a father-daughter date night had been his idea, coming home from the precinct far earlier than she had expected. Something was clearly bothering him, but Castle had shrugged off all of Alexis' attempts to find out what, choosing instead to placate her with an evening of food and time away from Martha and her new beau Chet.
But his mood was souring again, and Alexis wasn't having it.
"Dad," she said with a tug of his hand. "Hey, Dad…what's up?"
"Nothing, pumpkin," Castle lied with a fake smile before finally giving his ice cream cone some attention. It wasn't that he didn't want to confide in his daughter – he did – but he didn't want her exposed to the world of vampires and monsters. Life with a growing Alexis was scary enough, just thinking about future boyfriends and a potential rebel phase; he didn't want to worry about the proverbial boogeyman getting her too.
Besides, if Kate wouldn't let him be a part of whatever was going on, chances were she didn't want him to talking to other people about it. Not that he always did whatever the detective told him, but something told him that this time, listening was probably the way to go.
"It's Detective Beckett, isn't it?"
Castle frowned at his daughter, who smirked and shrugged her shoulders. "You're really transparent when it comes to her. It's almost like you've got a crush on her or something."
Alexis wasn't wrong. Though Castle was almost certain she didn't feel the same way – and even if she did, Kate Beckett had made it abundantly clear that her job as a homicide cop and her calling as a Slayer took precedence over everything else. Kate was destined to be the tragic hero, forever sacrificing her own personal happiness in order to fight the good fight.
It was noble, worthy of the character he was basing on her, but Castle felt sorry for her – and for anyone in the past, present, or future who might develop feelings for her. Because they would always come in second.
"She's extraordinary," he said with a faraway look in his eyes.
"And what about the other girl?" Alexis asked with a quirk of her brow. "The dark-haired one with the tattoo?"
"Faith is…" There was that sideways grin again. "I'm not sure."
"She's not another Page Six conquest, is she?" Alexis scrunched her brow in disgust before taking a bite out of her cone. "I thought you were over that."
"I am," Castle said with a little vehemence than he intended. "She's…fun. Uncomplicated. I think I need a little of that right now."
"Then how come you're not basing a character on her?"
Before Castle could answer, he was interrupted the sound of something crashing into one of the nearby trash cans. The sidewalk was relatively quiet at this hour – after the dinner rush but before the night crowd – so there weren't many people noticing the man in the black leather trench coat kicking over the can.
"Bloody hell!"
Alexis and Castle both smirked as the writer shook his head. "Wonder what Billy Idol's problem is."
"You mean other than that hair?" Alexis covered her mouth with the back of her hand. "What color do you think that is, radioactive?"
The man in the coat got back to his feet, twirling around in the direction of a nearby alley. When he did, Castle stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide when he saw feral yellow eyes and harsh ridges in his forehead. The writer fished out his phone and managed to snap a picture before the man bolted into the alley.
"Whoa…" Alexis shook her head. "What was that?"
"Must be some movie filming nearby," Castle lied, grabbing Alexis by the wrist and leading her across the street, oblivious to the taxi cab that screeched to a halt and blasted its horn at him. Castle glanced over his shoulder once they reached the other sidewalk, exhaling in relief when he no longer saw the man in the coat.
"Dad, what the heck?" Alexis tugged herself free from her father before casting a glance of her own at the other side of the street they had just crossed. "That…that wasn't just some actor in makeup, was it?"
Castle sighed and shook his head, mostly in resignation.
"Let's go home, pumpkin. Then I'll tell you the story of how I really met Detective Beckett."