LOG : Open to fanofthegenre

[bestsellingego]

The precinct is quiet. Most of the officers have gone home for the night, leaving behind their humming computers and the residue at the bottoms of two dozen chipped coffee cups. Most of the men at the precinct have families to go home to. The ones that don't, well, they volunteer to work the night shift. They roll into the precinct in pairs,

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[bestsellingego]

Ordinarily, when a woman avoids speaking to him, Castle can attribute it to one of two things: she's either a woman whose bed he's slipped out of in the wee small hours of the morning, or she's his mother. (It's important to Castle to make a strong distinction between those two phenomena.) With Beckett, it's different. Forget the fact that his publisher is snapping her capped jaws at his neck, wanting clear outlines of the next Nikki Heat chapter -- Beckett's a friend.

At least, she was until he'd let his curiosity stampede all over his respect for personal boundaries.

Hw sees Beckett moving across the room, like a brassy shark fin cutting through the shoulder-high carrels and offices. He can't make out her expression, but he knows she's worked a double today and that it has to be showing on her face at this point. Castle loses sight of her when she disappears into the break room. He gets up and bins the coffee cup. 'Comes to the threshold of the break room and stands there, pensive, hands in his pockets.

"You know, all work and no play makes Jack make unwise decisions about movie roles. Like Wolf." He rocks his brows toward his hairline, crushing his apprehension in the back of his throat. He's probably the last person she wants to see right now, but he can't leave well enough alone.

He never can.

[fanofthegenre]

The precinct's quiet as she makes her way through the rows of empty desks and the computers with their glaring blue screens. It gives the whole room this sort of eerie glow, and her footsteps might quicken by a fraction of a second as she heads into the break room.

As far as Beckett's concerned, she's all alone here, and that suits her just fine. She's not about to bemoan the lack of coworkers when she's got case files to close. Besides, the faster she works, the faster she can head home and get into bed before she has to wake up in another five hours to do it all over again.

She's pouring herself a fresh cup of coffee when Castle's voice sounds behind her. The noise startles her, and she jerks back, barely avoiding the hot liquid as some of it sloshes over the lip of her cup. A few drops do make contact with her knuckle, and she winces, but doesn't let the pain show as she reaches for a napkin to dab it off her skin.

"Yeah, well," she mutters, avoiding his gaze as she crosses the room to toss the napkin into the trash - which, inconveniently, puts her closer to him.

"Work can be a pretty good distraction sometimes."

[bestsellingego]

There are a lot of ways to test the level of a woman's anger. Silence is the coup de grâce. At least she's registering his existence. He thinks he can get around that junkyard dog jaw if he works at it a little.

"You're avoiding me," he says, proving once again that mystery writers are always skilled at stating the obvious.

[fanofthegenre]

There's a long moment between Beckett finding the words and her actually uttering them out loud.

In between, she takes a sip of coffee. In between, she briefly glances up at him.

"Those are some staggering powers of deduction you've got there. Do they just come naturally, or did you take a class?"

It's sarcasm, of course. He's got a knack for figuring out the little details, the cracks beneath the surface, and they both know it.

[bestsellingego]

She has a right to be defensive, he thinks. After all, it's not every day that someone dredges up the deep, dark memories of your past after you explicitly asked them not to. Castle knows he should have left it alone. But he had connections that she didn't; if there was ever a time that his celebrity was worth something, this was it.

"I shouldnt've gone behind your back," he says evenly, "and for that I'm sorry. But if it means that we could have a fresh lead on your mother's case, don't you think that's worth it?"

[fanofthegenre]

To him, it's only been about a day since they've stopped talking, but thanks to Milliways, it's been a lot longer than that for her. She's had time to think, as well as time to drink. Old wounds have been opened up, though, and it's going to take a little more time before they start to close on their own. No amount of alcohol is actually capable of doing more than deceiving her into thinking everything's okay.

"But you understand," she says, almost as quietly as a whisper. "You understand why I -- because I spent months, years, trying to figure this all out."

Her gaze lifts to his face again, and the hurt there is evident.

"And then you come along, with your high-ranking connections and your people on speed-dial," and now her voice is rising in volume as the frustration behind it all gets brought out into the light, "and you find a new lead in what, a week, tops?"

The hand gripping the coffee cup is already starting to tremble.

[bestsellingego]

Castle is instantly cowed. How does she do that? In addition to feeling about six inches tall, Castle suddenly finds it very difficult to breathe under the verbal lash. He watches her knuckles contract around the edge of her coffee cup and thinks about setting up some caution tape, just in case.

His expression darkens when she suggests he used his celebrity as a fulcrum for answers. He had, of course, but not for the reasons she was claiming. "This wasn't a celebrity ego stroke," he says, "I didn't do it to get on Larry King Live. I did it because I thought I could help you."

He shakes his head. "And that's not what this is about anyway, is it? You were scared of what you'd find out."

[fanofthegenre]

He's right. Like so many other times, he's managed to see straight through the facade of her frustration to the fear within. Not that she's about to let him know that in her words. If there's anything that scares her most, it's letting that fear take over when she's not paying attention to it - and in front of Castle, of all people.

"That's not the point," Beckett goes on, even if her efforts to defend herself are proving somewhat futile.

It is the point. Here she'd thought her mother's death was just a random happening, but to discover that it's actually one in a series of horrible events? That whoever did it might still be out there, killing?

No. She won't let herself think about it, because as soon as it hits her...

Beckett has to set her cup down on the table, and suddenly, her footing doesn't feel entirely steady.

"Castle," she says, but she isn't sure if she's saying his name just to say it or if there's going to be more words that follow.

[bestsellingego]

"Look," he says, plunging ahead before she has a chance to cut him off, "none of this has been about selling books. None of it has been about coming up with a narrative, or stringing together a plot. People think I can't separate my work from my ego. I can. And I took your mother's file to the ME -- not because I thought it would make a good epilogue -- but because I thought it was the right thing to do. I thought I could help you. And if I went about it the wrong way -- sneakily, covertly, and behind you back -- well, you can lock me up for it."

He regards her evenly, his lower lip drawn tight against his teeth, like it's being vacuum sealed. He believes what he's telling her. The unpleasantness of going behind her back and courting a second opinion aside, it matters to him that she has some kind of answer.

[fanofthegenre]

She's hurt, too, when she thinks about that part, too. The fact that he would go on and investigate into things anyway, even after she specifically asked - no, told him not to - it hurts. It might matter, having more knowledge of what actually happened to her mother, but now she's not sure if she can entirely trust him anymore.

And reopening her mother's file - it's something she never thought she'd see herself doing again. Now that she has, she's not sure how to handle it.

"I'm not going to do that," Beckett says, her gaze holding firm, even while the tension in her shoulders begins to subside and the muscles in her legs feel as though they're turning into gelatin. "I wouldn't do that."

[bestsellingego]

His face blossoms into exaggerated relief. "Good," he says, "because I had a feeling the statutes were a little shaky in the first place." He anticipates a smile out of her and when he doesn't get one, the joke withers on the vine. Beckett's not in the mood for humour. Castle has been lucky to get this far without a coffee mug-shaped welt on the side of his head.

"I'm sorry," he says, and this time, he actually means it.

[fanofthegenre]

It might take some more time before she's willing to crack a smile at one of his jokes, but she understands why he feels the need to continue making them. It's his defense mechanism; the tense mood in the room isn't as palpable as it used to be, and he's doing his best to improve things.

"I know," she answers, reaching for her coffee again. This time, her grip remains secure, and she starts to feel more awake and alert with every sip.

"Don't tell me you stayed this late just to run into me," Beckett adds.

[bestsellingego]

Of course he had. "Of course not, what, are you kidding?' He puffed his lips in disdain. "This place is about as lively after dark as a Christian book store. Mother's entertaining tonight. She's got some Broadway producer holed up in her chambers. It's like the abattoir of Dr. Caligari up there." He steps past her and retrieves an empty coffee cup from the rack. "Alexis is at a friend's house. Remarkably. this is the most sane place I could come up with to go."

Part of that is true.

[fanofthegenre]

He might have some pretty powerful deducting abilities, but so does she, and there might be a smile that comes forth, but only briefly, and it's because she knows he's so clearly fibbing that she can't help it.

And then, at the same time, she silently curses him and his ability to do that.

Beckett clears her throat, and the smile disappears behind the rim of her coffee cup.

"Here, at the precinct, and not at the impressive brownstone of one of your adoring fans? I'm shocked, Castle."

[bestsellingego]

"James Brolin had a previous engagement." A cloud of steam curls out of the edges of the espresso machine as Castle, like the Great and Powerful Oz, twists knobs and dials in an attempt to create the perfect cup of coffee.

"You gonna' work all night?" he asks, shooting her a look through the steam that might actually be genuine concern.

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett shrugs.

"I've got a few cases left to officially close," she says, which equals lots and lots of paperwork. "It shouldn't take more than another hour or two."

Of course, she has been known to fall asleep at her desk and wake up to the hustle and bustle of the morning shift, so she's definitely not ruling out that possibility.