Author's Note: A chapter set during "A Deadly Game," so there'll be some familiar lines of dialogue.
The Best-Laid Plans
Chapter 8
Kate would not have admitted it aloud to anyone, was reluctant to admit it to herself even, but she couldn't deny the uplift of her spirits when Dispatch called her first thing in the morning when she had just been about to leave for the precinct. A body had been found in Central Park so instead of going into the precinct, she had to head to the park instead.
It wasn't that she was happy that someone had been murdered, of course not. It was only relief, or something like that, at not having to face another paperwork day. One day of paperwork after the Devon Ragar case had closed and then a quiet weekend was enough for her. She'd been on call over the weekend but a body hadn't dropped so she hadn't needed to work, had spent the weekend quietly, running errands, meeting up with her dad for brunch. The sort of usual, uneventful weekend she was used to and appreciated–and if she'd found herself thinking of Castle rather more often than she wanted, well, that had nothing to do with anything.
She was just used to having him around. It wasn't that she had missed him or anything like that. She'd just thought about him, sometimes, that was all. And she refused to think about or acknowledge her dreams. She wasn't Freud and she didn't believe that dreams meant anything and well, she couldn't be held responsible for what her unconscious mind produced or what–who–her stubborn, stupid body continued to want.
It was only sex, anyway, a purely physical reaction that meant nothing. And twice would be enough, definitely. She was sure of it. Really, she was. It would be enough, eventually.
That was what she'd told herself after the second time when she'd forced herself to leave Castle in his bed and if she sometimes found herself remembering what it had felt like to be nestled against him, held, surrounded by his warmth and his strength, in the short time before he had fallen asleep–well, she didn't allow herself to dwell on it. It hadn't meant anything. It didn't matter how good it had felt to be held by him or that it had made her think things, want things she could not–should not–want. She'd only lingered in his arms, in his bed, because she'd wanted to avoid the awkwardness of explaining herself so she'd waited until he'd fallen asleep before carefully sliding out from his embrace. Yes, that was all it had been.
She ignored the flare of panic she'd felt when she'd realized how close she'd been to falling asleep, found herself wanting to stay the night, stay for longer than that, even. It didn't matter because she hadn't stayed, had found the will to leave him, leaving before she could do something really stupid like staying the night. Okay, so yes, in her unthinking rush to leave, she'd left her dad's watch behind–and had kicked herself about it–but the important thing was that she'd still left and it was fine. She hadn't lingered that long anyway, not even an hour, and if she'd found that it had provided some new fodder for her dreams, that some of them had seemed less about sex than about what it had felt like to be held by him–well, that was just memory.
And if she felt a little spurt of something like happiness at the call about a new case, it wasn't personal, had nothing to do with him at all.
But even so, she found herself tamping down on a renegade flutter in her chest as she called Castle and heard his voice, eliciting a faint tingle of reaction just at the sound of his familiar tone. "It's Castle."
Her reaction, or rather her trying to stamp down on her reaction, made her voice cooler than she realized as she directed him to meet her in the park, giving him the same directions Dispatch had given her.
But for all her rationalizing, she couldn't deny the impact of seeing him again, after a weekend without him. Maybe part of it was due to the change in scenery too, out in the park and not in the precinct as usual, but whatever it was, the sight of him did something to her. She was just… glad to see him. And so what if she was? He was a friend. It was totally normal to be glad to see a friend! (She ignored the niggling voice in her mind reminding her that Lanie was a friend and she couldn't remember ever feeling quite so glad to see Lanie.)
She arrived at the designated location in the park before Castle, had time to exchange quick greetings with the uniforms cordoning off the scene, before she sensed Castle's approach and the uniform's eyes flickered past her to focus on something else.
She turned and saw him, carrying a cup of coffee in each hand. He had stopped for coffee, as usual. She was standing in the shade but he was in full sunlight as he neared and for a moment, it seemed as if the sun threw the bulk of his shoulders, his chest, into sharp relief and the thought darted into her mind that he looked so… strong. Strong enough to shelter her, as if she could be safe with him…
Wait, what was she thinking? She pulled herself up sharply. She didn't need someone else to shelter her; she was a cop, trained and armed, she could protect herself.
"Good morning, Detective," he greeted her, handing over her cup of coffee.
"Hey, Castle," she responded, trying not to notice the quick spark of reaction where their fingers brushed. (Good lord, how could she still react like this to him? She'd had two nights with him, the itch should have been well and truly scratched, and yet…)
He glanced around, taking in a breath. "A beautiful morning and a fresh body just for us."
She suppressed a smile. To anyone who didn't know him, he really would sound creepy. "You seem cheerful today." She gestured with her free hand. "Come on, the body's up ahead near the bridge. The boys are already there."
"Yeah, well, I was just talking to Alexis about our trip."
Her steps momentarily hitched a little. "Your trip? You're going somewhere?" He was leaving? And he hadn't told her? She felt irrationally injured before she batted it back. They weren't in a relationship. He didn't need to tell her about his plans. And anyway, it wasn't as if she cared, she hurriedly reminded herself.
"To the Hamptons for Memorial Day. It's sort of a tradition. We weren't originally going to go this year because, well, you know," he grimaced, making an awkward gesture with the hand that held his coffee.
Because Meredith had been supposed to visit before she'd canceled, Kate silently filled in, but only nodded her understanding.
His expression eased as he went on, "Anyway, Memorial Day in the Hamptons is sort of a tradition, like a preview for the summer. Alexis has a half-day on Friday so we'll leave early in the afternoon, beat the holiday traffic, and get back on Monday."
He was going to be gone on Friday and all weekend too, she realized. She didn't know why but somehow, she didn't like the idea. The idea that he would be out of town for four days, that she wouldn't see him or hear from him. That she couldn't just show up at his loft again–not that she was planning to do any such thing, she quickly broke off the thought. She didn't care. It was just… surprise, that was all.
"We always make a real vacation out of it. Spending time in the pool or on the beach, bonfires, roasting marshmallows, telling ghost stories, sleeping late."
His face and his voice softened, as it always did at the mention of Alexis. "We've done it since she was 5."
She felt a strange tightness in her chest, at what she didn't know, except that this side of him, the father side of him, was just so disarming, so likable. "It sounds nice. Kind of magical, actually."
"Yeah, it really is a magical sort of place, if I do say so myself." His tone became rather wistful. "And this year, I'll really have to soak up every minute of it since it'll probably be the only weekend I get with Alexis at the Hamptons this summer."
She blinked. "Why will it be the only weekend? Are you going somewhere?" He was leaving, again? But no, he would never leave his daughter.
"I'm not going anywhere, it's Alexis. She got admitted into a summer program at Princeton."
"Careful there, Castle, I think you narrowly avoided bursting with pride," she drawled, hiding the tendril of warmth sprouting inside her at this further evidence of what kind of dad he was.
He gave a small laugh, making a toasting gesture with his coffee. "Guilty as charged, I can't help it. It is Princeton, after all."
"I know," she agreed, giving in to a smile. "Congratulate Alexis for me. It's great news."
"Yeah, she's really thrilled about it. Especially because she was actually wait-listed at first. She was sort of moping about it over the weekend but then this morning, she got an email that someone had canceled so a spot had opened up for her. She's so excited she probably half-floated on the way to school this morning." He made a little face. "Most teens look forward to summer vacations. My daughter celebrates the idea of having more school." He shook his head, affecting a sigh. "Where did I go wrong?"
She couldn't help her smile. "Yes, I can see you're terribly disappointed in her."
He inclined his head to acknowledge her mock condolence before his expression shifted into a real grimace. "Although I was happier about it before I learned that the dorms are co-ed and the closest thing to 'adult' supervision they'll have will be some 21-year-old kid as a resident advisor."
"Don't look like that, Castle. That might be a dangerous situation for a lot of teens but from what I know of her, Alexis is too smart and too sensible to get into that much trouble. Don't you trust her judgment?"
"Alexis, I trust. Teenage boys, however, not for a minute, and I say this as someone who used to be one."
She bit down on a laugh as Espo came to meet them, only giving Castle a small nudge with her elbow in acknowledgement. "What have we got?"
Later, she couldn't help but think that it was fortunate for Castle that the facts of the case were unique enough to distract him effectively from any worries over Alexis and her summer.
A victim shot multiple times by a killer who'd taken the time and trouble to remove the bullets. She didn't like to admit it but Castle wasn't wrong when he said it sounded rather like a professional killer. She knew from experience that for most people, even if they'd planned a murder beforehand, actually committing it, seeing a bullet hit the body, the violent ending of a life, was different, tended to fluster people. It took training–like the sort of training cops got. She inwardly grimaced. If this case involved a law enforcement official gone wrong, it would get ugly.
Well, all they could do was work the case like any other, finding out more about this Shawn Caldwell. Although that turned out to be easier said than done, she discovered, as everything they found seemed to lead to nowhere, from the fact that his so-called employer appeared not to exist to the fact that his IDs also turned out to be fake.
Castle all but exploded with his excitement when finding the victim's car just outside the park led to the information that the victim had been a spy, an honest-to-goodness spy. Oh, Castle was never going to get over his excitement about this case. She sternly hid a flicker of amusement as he declared this "officially the coolest case ever!" Yeah, she'd known he would say that.
But even Castle sobered up when following the trail of the victim to his contact at a cafe–which struck her as being a little odd–and then finding his hotel room led them to a dossier and an apparent assassination plan. Right up until Castle, in one of those brain waves that made him so helpful, saw straight through a plot that involved the assassination of a person who didn't exist. It was all some sort of game, a crazy one. Although, she supposed, she could be so jaded about it because her job and her life included real danger, an actual risk, so she saw no appeal in pretend danger.
"The company is called Spy Ventures," Esposito had looked it up and now gave them a run-down of what this Spy Ventures did. "Their motto is 'authenticity.'"
"Right down to the offshore accounts, false identifications, and realistic weaponry," Castle commented with more seriousness than she expected. She'd expected him to get a thrill out of all this.
"All right. Find out who the hell is in charge," she directed. "Let's see if authenticity includes murder."
She turned away from Espo's desk and stalked back to her own, irritated and aware, now that the adrenaline rush of thinking they were on the trail of a spy was gone, that she was tired. She felt a headache coming on. The day had been intense, what with the whole spy thing, and then to find out that it had all been a wasted day. Back to square one, considering they still didn't even know the victim's real name.
"Hey. I was going to go to the vending machine. Want something?"
She glanced up. "Some chocolate?"
"Coming right up."
She watched him go, a little tendril of warmth sparking inside her as it occurred to her that Castle always did this, never failed to ask if she wanted anything when he went in search of a snack or more coffee or anything. Yes, it was the polite thing to do but even so, not everyone was so unfailingly polite or thoughtful.
He returned in a couple minutes, dropping into his seat and offering her a bag of M&Ms–and then she noted that he didn't appear to have gotten anything for himself.
"You didn't get anything?"
He shrugged. "Turned out I didn't have as much change on me as I thought."
She eyed him, somehow sure that he was prevaricating. She was aware that Castle usually carried more cash on him than most people did so his reason just didn't ring true. He wasn't looking at her, was making a show of studying the murder board–the one that still held all the false trails they'd spent the day compiling. And it dawned on her that he hadn't really wanted a snack for himself at all, had only noticed or guessed that she was tired and needed something to pick her up and had provided it.
Oh. Oh damn. It was just this sort of thing, his surprising (maybe not so surprising anymore) sweetness that got to her sometimes. As irritating as he could be, as much of a man-child as he could be, he could also just be… nice.
He was always so nice to her. It almost made her think, hope… but no, she cut off the thought forcefully. If she'd learned anything about Castle in the last year, it was that he was a kind man, nice to basically everyone and certainly to women. He was chivalrous, to use an old-fashioned term. And it wasn't just for her benefit, she knew that. She'd seen it in how kind he'd been to Scarlett Price a few months ago or the way he'd treated that model who'd used to be Alexis's babysitter, Rina. Alexis had mentioned a couple months ago over the course of their conversation about Alexis's possible study-abroad plans that her dad had made a point of having Rina come over to rekindle her friendship with Alexis and Kate remembered that case of the dead model well enough to guess that the very alone-ness of the victim had gotten to Castle. So no, if he was kind to her, it wasn't really personal to her. It was just part of him, his way. It occurred to her that his kindness might have as much to do with his success with women as his charm or even his money.
She opened up the bag of M&Ms and ate a few before offering him some, which he accepted, still looking more meditative than she would have expected.
"Nice work," she offered and he looked up, his lips finally curving a little.
"For what?"
"Figuring out this whole spy-cation thing."
"I've heard about this sort of thing before, these immersive experience-type things so it all fell into place when the whole Luvania thing came up."
"I'm just surprised that you don't seem excited by it. I'd have thought a spy-cation would be something you'd leap at."
He looked a little sheepish. "Okay, I won't deny I've looked into similar things in the past, even considered doing it."
"Considered it but you never actually went on one of these spy-cation type of things? Why not?"
He lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "The short answer? Alexis. Obviously, she couldn't go and I couldn't take vacations without her. I thought I might when she got old enough to be left alone more but then I met you and who needs a fake thrill when I get enough of the real thing working with you?"
She sternly stamped down on the absurd flicker of pleasure at his reference to her. It wasn't about her personally, it was just the whole working-with-cops thing, not just her. But all she said was, "You're a good dad."
His expression softened into his Alexis look, the one he always got when he spoke about his daughter. "I try and I lucked out with her."
It really was hard not to like him when he talked about his daughter. And for a crazy instant, looking at him, aware of him as she always was nowadays, she thought about asking if he wanted to come over to her place. For stress relief, to help her sleep better, she told herself.
What was she thinking? She forcibly obliterated the thought from her mind as much and as quickly as she could. No, no, no, no, she could not do that. Had already decided that she could never sleep with him again. She'd taken one more night than she'd originally planned and that had to be all.
She hurriedly spoke. "Speaking of Alexis, you might as well head home. I doubt we'll be hearing anything from Spy Ventures immediately." Which was true enough but she hadn't planned to send him home early until just that moment but now, she abruptly needed some distance between them, needed him not to be where she could see him.
He hesitated. "You sure?"
"Go on, Castle. See you tomorrow."
"See you tomorrow."
He left and she was, at least for the moment, relieved to see him go.
And then the next morning, shortly after she got into the precinct, she received an unwelcome reminder of just how annoying Castle could be. Was he trying to make her life more irritating or was he just that thoughtless?
"Hey, Beckett?"
"What?" she all but growled at poor Ryan, whose eyes went wide at her tone, his hands flying up in a gesture of surrender.
"I just wanted to tell you that someone from Spy Ventures got back to us. They're expecting you at their offices in an hour."
Finally, a helpful development in their case. She gave Ryan a small smile of apology. "Thanks, Ryan."
"Sure thing." He didn't quite flee but he also didn't linger either and she felt a twinge of guilt. She shouldn't have taken her irritation out on Ryan–and decided it was another thing to blame on Castle.
It was fortunate for Castle that he didn't show up immediately. In the next 20 minutes or so before he showed up, her irritation had time to wane, and the process was helped along by the coffee he brought, as usual.
He greeted her with a touch of caution in his tone, apparently sensing that her temper was not at its best.
She didn't bother with a return greeting. "Your ex-wife called me," she informed him baldly. "She said you've been avoiding her because you're late delivering on your manuscript of Naked Heat."
His eyes widened and in an instant, he looked like a little boy caught out in some mischief. Really, she didn't know how a grown man could look so young, so boyishly sheepish. A little needle of amusement pricked through her irritation, making it start to deflate. Oh, damn him and how disarming he could be.
"That's a catchy title," she bit out, grasping for lingering irritation. "When were you going to tell me?"
"I… was waiting for the perfect time," he answered cautiously. "It just never happened."
Still annoyed, still annoyed…
"She's naked on the cover again, isn't she?"
He had the grace to wince. "Kind of, yeah."
"That's great," she clipped with mordant sarcasm. "No one's going to make fun of me." She foresaw a lot of death glares and threats in her future. Damn it.
She turned on her heel and stalked off before glancing back at him. "Well, don't just stand there."
"Right," he blinked and hurried to catch up with her, sending a careful glance at her the way someone might eye a rattlesnake poised to strike. "May I ask where we're going?" he asked, as politely as the most angelic choir boy.
Cute, the word darted into her mind without her permission, and she shoved the thought aside. He was not cute. (Liar.)
"We heard back from Spy Ventures. The owners are waiting to talk to us."
He brightened up. "Oh good. Now we can finally move forward with the real case."
She didn't respond and he stayed silent for a little while until they were in her car on their way to Spy Ventures and then he started by darting sidelong glances at her.
"What?"
"Are you still mad at me?"
She really didn't know why but something about the ingenuous way he asked the question, combined with his look of a chastened school boy, finished off what lingering bits of her irritation remained. "I'm still making up my mind about that," was what she said.
But of course, he understood that to mean she wasn't. He gave a sigh of relief, visibly relaxing. "Good. Because I actually have an invitation for you."
"An invitation," she repeated rather blankly.
"Yes, how'd you like to come out to the Hamptons this weekend? You did say it sounded magical. It's right on the ocean, there's a secluded pool. When was the last time you took a vacation and just relaxed?"
"Wait, you're seriously asking me to your place in the Hamptons?" She turned to stare at him. They didn't do this kind of thing, didn't often spend much time together outside of the precinct and certainly, didn't take trips together.
"Well, actually, I'm not," he quickly answered, neatly taking the wind out of her sails. "It was Alexis's idea so she's really the one doing the inviting. I'm just the messenger."
"Alexis wants me to come out to the Hamptons with you?" she repeated, feeling rather discombobulated all over again. She and Alexis were friendly, yes, but not exactly friends so that Alexis would invite her over or anything. The only thing she could think of was that Alexis was trying to matchmake somehow but how could she– "Wait, Alexis doesn't know about… what we did, does she?" she asked euphemistically.
He shot her a look of convincing horror. "No! Believe me, I don't talk about that part of my life with my daughter." He shuddered a little.
No, of course he wouldn't. "Just checking."
"I think Alexis is afraid spending the weekend with only me for company will get boring," he pulled a pout.
"Only you? What about Martha?"
"My mother has an audition this weekend so she won't be joining us so it really will be just me and Alexis."
She couldn't. She shouldn't. She wanted to. Wait, what? She shouldn't want to spend more time with him outside of work, certainly should not want to be spending time with him and his daughter for a vacation. A flare of panic had her blurting out, "I might have to work this weekend."
"You might?" It was his turn to repeat her words.
"I haven't checked with Montgomery yet," she managed, which was truthful enough. She wasn't supposed to be on call, having been on call this past weekend, but she hadn't specifically checked. "Anyway, we're here so let's focus on the case," she hurriedly added as she parked.
Fortunately for her, finding out the victim's real name–Roger Faraday–and then tracing back his movements in the game to find out the origins of the mysterious 5,000 Euros in his car was engrossing and didn't allow the subject of the Hamptons to come up again. But by the end of the day, it again seemed as if they hadn't gotten very far, other than scaring the life out of some Ukrainian college kids.
Captain Montgomery stopped by at the end of the day for his usual update, not that she could tell him much. They'd figured out the origins of the money but it hadn't led them to their killer at all. "Well, hopefully tomorrow you'll get somewhere that will allow you to close this case and enjoy your weekend. Night, Beckett, Castle."
She hesitated a moment before turning back to her desk and Castle.
"So, it sounds like you're not supposed to work this weekend," he commented.
And there it was, the elephant in the air between them that was his Hamptons invitation out in the open. "I guess not," she agreed rather lamely.
He hesitated and then said, "You know, if you don't want to come, you can just say so." He managed a somewhat brittle little laugh. "I can't call up the Mayor and have him order you to go or anything."
Crap. "It's not that, Castle," she rushed out, not entirely smoothly. "I just don't want to intrude. You said yourself it'll be your only weekend in the Hamptons with Alexis this summer." Which was true too but her bigger concern was the awkwardness, going away for a long weekend with her one-time (two-time) lover and his daughter. It would just feel… awkward.
"You wouldn't be intruding. Think of it as taking pity on Alexis, spare her the indignity of having to spend a whole four days with only her boring, old dad for company," he affected a lugubrious sigh. "It sounds like every teenager's worst nightmare."
Except Alexis was not most teenagers–and Castle was not most parents.
"Yeah, I… let me think about it, okay?" she found herself saying, before she'd honestly realized she was going to. She'd thought–really–that she was all set to refuse except that brief instant after the Captain had left when Castle had seemed almost… wounded, the tightness around his eyes, stuck in her mind and somehow made it impossible for her to just refuse. Not outright and not right then, at least.
He brightened. "Sure, take your time. And seriously, it'll be fun, just a getaway with friends."
"I'll think about it," she repeated. "Night, Castle."
"Night."
That night, she dreamed about Castle, as usual these days. (She wasn't sure a single night had gone by since that first night at the hotel where he hadn't invaded her dreams.) But this time, for once, they weren't in a bed but in a pool.
He sent a wave of water splashing into her face and she took revenge by swimming up behind him and pushing his shoulders to dunk him into the water so he came up sputtering and wrapped one arm around her waist, bringing her against him so she felt his body react, hardening almost instantly. She wasn't sure which of them moved first but in a minute, their lips were on each other, open-mouthed, eager, devouring. His hands divested her of her bikini top and then his mouth closed over her nipple and she gasped, rolled her hips against his. And then his hands closed around her waist, easily lifting her up and out, setting her on the side of the pool. Her legs parted in welcome as he lowered his head…
She jerked awake, a moan caught in her throat, a now-familiar needy ache between her legs. Oh god. This was insane. She didn't know why she couldn't seem to get him out of her head, get this lust for him out of her system, but at this point, this desire for him seemed to have infected her, gotten into her veins, and she couldn't get him out. By now, she knew that getting herself off would provide only a little, temporary, and ultimately unsatisfying relief but it was all she had, her only choice. Because the real thing could never happen again, would never happen again.
She released a long, shuddering breath and then let her head fall back as she divested herself of her pajama bottoms and her underwear, slid her hand between her legs. And let herself sink back into her dream-fantasy, let herself picture the dark wanting in his eyes, the muscles shifting under his skin, the touch of his hands and his mouth…
The next morning, in the bright light of day, she decided all over again that she absolutely could not go with Castle to the Hamptons. Her nightly imaginings were proof that she needed more distance from him and spending a long weekend with him–a long weekend where she would see him in a swimsuit–was the last thing she needed.
And that was that.
In the meantime, they still had a case to close or she wouldn't be getting a weekend at all. She ran through the facts as they knew it in her mind, all the complications caused by the stupid game, and none of it explaining why the victim would end up dead.
But in a murder case, the number one rule was that it was always about the victim. She straightened up as she studied the murder board. The game had just been that; nothing about it, not even Hugo's illegal fake-ID operation, would have given anyone a real, personal motive to kill the victim, since he was just another player. No, this was about the victim, something in the victim's actual life, not just his penchant for spy games.
"Hey."
She turned, a smile escaping her entirely of its own volition, as Castle appeared, handing her a coffee. "Hey."
Their fingers brushed, as usual, as she accepted her coffee and for a moment, she swore his eyes darted down to her lips…
"So, I was thinking," he began.
Her mouth was unaccountably a little dry. "Yeah?"
"What if it's not about the game? What if the game only gave the killer an opportunity to act?"
Oh, right, the case. She mentally slapped herself. Of course, the case, what else would they be talking about? "That's so funny. I was just thinking the same thing."
He brightened, giving her one of his companionable, smug little smiles that she couldn't help but return–and really, there was something that she would almost call, well, magical, in the way they managed to work together sometimes, these moments when their minds ran on parallel tracks. (Oh god, she'd been spending too much time with Castle if she was thinking in terms of magic.)
And then they were off, chasing a lead in tandem, following a money trail to the victim's business partner who–she thought that this might be unique in her experience–had an alibi because he'd been sleeping with the victim's wife.
Kate would have thought by now she had seen almost every variety of happy–well, mostly unhappy marriages over the course of her work in homicide but even so, she was left blinking at the victim's wife's blunt statement that she didn't want a divorce because her house was too nice.
As if the victim's wife's adultery hadn't been enough, another look at the victim's financials led them to the fact that the victim, too, had been having an affair, with his partner in game-play, the seemingly-normal housewife. So for all the extra twists and turns, the red herring that the spy-game turned out to be, the case turned out to be the most cliched of murders, a 'Jack shot Bill over Jill,' in the cop parlance.
It occurred to her that Castle was probably disappointed. After all his excitement at the idea of the victim being a spy, even if that had turned out to be false, and after all the added twists of the spy-game, the motive for the murder had been a quotidian one.
She gave Captain Montgomery a summary of the case while the boys were processing Mr. Fisher's arrest and taking his formal statement. Montgomery, of course, had a famously happy marriage but he sighed and shook his head a little at the denouement. "Two affairs. A loveless marriage. It's sad that a man had to die because all the people involved were too scared to go after what they really wanted."
"You're right, it is sad," she agreed and found her eyes looking over the Captain's shoulder to Castle, turned mostly away from her as he talked on the phone. Noticing, as she always seemed to these days, his height, his build, his smile at whatever the person he was talking to said.
"Good job on this case, Beckett," the Captain added.
Her glance flickered back to Montgomery. "Thank you, sir."
"Oh, do you have plans for the long weekend?"
"I–I'm not sure, sir."
"Well, whatever you do, try to enjoy yourself. You're overdue for some fun, Detective."
She managed a smile. "Yes, sir, I'll try."
"Good." The Captain nodded at her before he turned, hailing one of the other detectives.
Castle finished his phone call and strode towards her, his eyes finding hers, his expression brightening as it tended to when he saw her, she thought. She didn't know how or why but somehow, he almost always did look, well, pleased to see her. It was rather nice. She wasn't sure anyone aside from her father looked so consistently glad to see her since the nature of her job generally meant that no one really welcomed a visit from her and she was most often seeing people at their worst.
"Hey," he greeted her. "Another closed case for the dream team, huh?"
"And go figure, the victim wasn't actually a spy and the murder wasn't about the spy game either," she needled, giving him a small smirk.
He pulled an exaggerated face. "As much as it pains me to admit, I have it on good authority that for all the time mystery writers like yours truly spend in planning murders, when it comes down to it, there are really only three reasons to commit murder: love, money, or to cover up a crime."
She widened her eyes in a parody of surprise. "I'm shocked, Castle. Are you actually admitting that most murders are pretty straightforward?"
He wrinkled his nose. "Maybe. But as they say, it's not about the destination so much as it is the journey. And that's the fun part of a mystery, isn't it?"
She pretended thoughtfulness. "Mm, I'll have to think, maybe read the latest Patterson or Cannell to see if mystery novels are actually fun."
He gave a loud, fake gasp, miming a blow to the heart. "I'm hurt. I'm positively devastated. Are you implying that my novels aren't as much fun?"
She had to laugh at his melodrama. Ridiculous man that he was–ridiculous and, well, fun. "You said it, not me."
He made a face at her before he straightened, dropping the act. "So, now that the case is closed, I was wondering, have you had a chance to think about this weekend, the Hamptons?"
She bit her lip. "You're really sure I won't be intruding on your time with Alexis?"
"I'm sure. Alexis and I both want you to come, cross my heart," he added, absurdly.
"Then, yes," she agreed, her heart flipping over in her chest. "For Alexis's sake," she hurriedly added. "I hate to think of her getting bored on her one weekend in the Hamptons this summer."
For once, he didn't react to the tease, only beamed. (He really did have the brightest blue eyes.) "Great, that's great! I'll tell Alexis and I'm sure she'll be thrilled too."
Something inside her hesitated, a little, she didn't know why, at his excitement. Ridiculous that his being so happy at the idea of her joining them would somehow make her less certain of her decision–but too late now. She couldn't even have said exactly why she'd agreed except maybe it was what Montgomery had said, about how a man had died because the people involved hadn't gone after what they'd wanted, or maybe it was just his reminder that she was overdue for some fun. And well, right now, to her–and she didn't care to analyze this too deeply–fun meant spending time with Castle. And it wasn't about the sex–it really wasn't–but just him. It would be a getaway with friends, as he'd said, and that was all. They were adults and they both understood that the sex wouldn't be repeated and his daughter would be there too so it would be, well, fun, just some innocent fun with friends. That was all.
"So I know you'll still have to work tomorrow, won't you?" he went on, his tone becoming practical.
"Yeah," she confirmed. "You and Alexis should still leave for the Hamptons tomorrow," she suggested. "I'll just drive out on Saturday morning to join you."
He hesitated. "You're sure? I mean, it's not like Alexis and I have anything we need to do in the Hamptons tomorrow."
"I'm sure. You and Alexis should go, let Alexis enjoy all the time she has. And that way, you have time to get ready for me to arrive," she gave him a smile.
"We'll get the red carpet out," he quipped. "Okay, I'll text you the address."
"Yeah, thanks."
His expression lit up all over again as he all but bounced on his feet. "This will be great, just wait and see. So… I guess I'll see you Saturday?"
"See you Saturday," she agreed.
He nodded, beaming again, and then, shortly afterwards, he left, waving goodbyes to the boys.
Memorial Day weekend in the Hamptons with Castle, and his daughter. Oh lord, how had she found herself agreeing to this? And yet, she found she couldn't regret it.
She just wanted this, a weekend of fun with him–and his daughter. It might not be the cautious, sensible thing to do, but surely, she was entitled to a weekend of fun? Just a friendly getaway, as he'd said.
~To be continued…~
A/N 2: Next up, the Hamptons, which I'm sure you all are eagerly looking forward to.
