Mended-A Torn Sequel, Ch. 2-5-Shot set post-Boom! (2 x 18)
Title: Mended-A Torn Sequel, Ch. 2
Rating: T
Summary: "She doesn't regret taking him up on it. Not really, even when he decides he has to make a production of it. Even when he's grabbing her phone and downloading some app for sharing lists. Adding her email to his account."
A/N: Second chapter of this sequel to Torn, which takes place during the events of Boom! (2 x 18). Still looking like a 3-shot, though this chapter got long
She doesn't regret taking him up on it. Not really, even when he decides he has to make a production of it. Even when he's grabbing her phone and downloading some app for sharing lists. Adding her email to his account.
"Crisper cemetery duty? Bed time story?" Her eyebrows shoot up. He makes a dive for the phone, but she holds it high.
"Um. That's . . . our weekly household list . . ." He gives up on her phone and turns his attention to the settings on his own version. "There's got to be a way to selectively . . ."
"It's fine, Castle." She swipes away from the list and holds up the screen for him to see. "I won't snoop."
"You won't, will you?" He gives her a sharp look, then goes back to his phone, shaking his head. "Weirdest detective ever."
He taps out the whole list. Top to bottom, his fingers flying, her protests going unheard. "You don't have to . . . not all . . . Castle!"
"I know." He closes his hand around her phone. He brings his own next to it, showing her the list, mirrored from one screen to the other. "I don't have to do all of it. I won't try. But you'll be able to see." He taps the box next to one item. A check mark winks into existence. Side by side on his phone and hers. "And if you get time to take care of something" - he unchecks the box - "I'll know I don't need to, ok?" He ducks to find her eyes. "Ok, Kate?"
And he's asking. He's really asking so carefully, trying not to run roughshod and fix everything, and she feels a little of the knot inside unwind. She doesn't regret anything.
"Yeah. Ok, Castle." She presses the button on her own phone, blacking out the screen and leaving it to him. "Ok."
It's a weird day on multiple levels. The calm after the storm, though she's constantly moving. Constantly doing and confirming and repeating. It feels like calm, but only in contrast to the days before. On top of everything-on top of a job that doesn't stop just because a serial killer happened to fixate on her-the Feds love their paperwork. Tedious, endless, almost-but-not-quite identical forms.
It's hard to get any of it done. Hard to focus and remember what she's already filled out and what she hasn't when she's fielding another and another and another awkward, backhanded expression of concern. Sympathy. Guess-it-doesn't-suck-that-you're-not-dead sentiment, because cops aren't great at that.
She thinks about him. About Naked Heat and the way he captured exactly this. How he'd crystalized something she'd never put together. The bad jokes and off-handed all-in-a-day's-work attitude. The fierce loyalty between the lines. She thinks about the strange ways he knows her already and the ways he doesn't. Not yet, says a giddy voice inside, and she presses her lips together and tries to focus on paperwork.
He pesters her from afar, of course. He texts her character sketches of one person after another. A homeless man wearing a nun's habit.
He'd be a red herring, though. The bereaved simple-minded brother whose psyche was fractured for good when he found her body on the park bench where they met every Saturday.
A young guy in an expensive suit he doesn't like the look of.
Up to no good: What's a guy with money like that doing on the 1 train at ten in the morning?
She can't resist that one. She fires back.
I dunno, Castle, what are you doing on the 1 train at ten in the morning?
The reply is immediate.
Trying to impress a girl.
A few seconds later.
Is it working?
Her head whips around. She's sure she's caught. Sure someone must see her blushing bright and fighting against the kind of smile that'd put her gawky teenage self to shame, but she's alone. For the moment she's miraculously alone. She taps at the phone, shy and bold at once. Sure of herself and second guessing.
Maybe . . . Let's see some check marks.
It goes on like that all morning. She plugs away at paperwork. Shuts the phone away in the drawer and pulls it out like a little reward system when she finishes a chunk and another chunk.
He doesn't disappoint. He sends her selfies and screencaps of his high scores on games she's never heard of. He snaps tight-framed pictures of tiny parts of odd landmarks and tells her to guess where he is.
She does guess a couple of times, though they fly in, too fast and furious for her to keep up. She's right when she does. She's always right.
She weathers one incident interview and it's not so bad, with Montgomery at her back..
"That was the practice round, Detective," Montgomery warns. "Bigger guns this afternoon and worse in the morning." He smiles, then, lightening the moment. "Keep your cool just like that, though, and this'll be behind you by the weekend."
She thanks him again and sinks into her desk chair. She'd been worried. She's just realizing it now. After the fact, when her spine pops and her ribs rise with the first full-on breath she's really drawn today. She slides open the desk drawer and fumbles the phone toward her. She drags a furtive thumb up the screen.
She finds half a dozen things, but the most recent is another guessing game. A close-up of some outdoor architectural element. Gorgeous bronze scrollwork that looks like a B resting on its back. She's been following the check marks as they appear on the list to work out what he's near. From there, it's a simple task to figure out what nearby would most likely catch his eye.
It's been a simple task so far, but this one has her stumped. She pulls up Google street view for a few of the destinations on the list and mentally ticks through the things he'd already gotten to before she went into the closed-door meeting. She makes an educated guess. Twenty seconds later, her desk phone rings.
"You're cheating. I don't know how, but you are."
"Cop," she says, trying not to smile as hard as lips seem to want to. "I know the mean streets."
"Must be why you always get trapped in the maze of one-ways when you drive me home.
"One time, Castle. That was one time. And it was your fault for distracting me." She jumps as Velasquez drops a sheaf of file folders over her shoulder and on to the desk. "Speaking of distraction . . ."
"No lunch for you, then?"
"Lunch?" It's her second surprise in as many seconds. She checks her watch, then flicks the screen of her cell when she can't quite believe what it says. He's right, though. It's long since going on lunch time, even or her. "I didn't realize . . ." She brings up the list app, her chest going tight when she realizes she's gotten nothing done. But she sees the checkmarks, then. Things rearranging themselves. "Castle. The list. This is . . . almost done."
"Not really," he says, sounding like his mind is on something else. The sync wheel spins and she watches items leap frog each other as he rearranges them. By geography or priority or who knows what method there might be to his madness. "But I think I have time to swing by with lunch."
"No. Don't. After everything, you don't have to." She feels her face go red. A squirming sensation inside that's guilt, but no small amount of pleasure, too. Relief. "You've already . . ."
"Look. I know you have your heart set on vending machine food." His voice fades out and in like he's swapping the phone from hand to hand. "But I need sustenance . . ."
She loses the last of what he says. Esposito is holding one hand high, snapping to catch her attention. He's scrawling something on a pad with his other hand, his neck at an awkward angle to wedge the handset between cheek and shoulder.
"Sorry, Castle." She launches into the same awkward dance as Esposito, reaching down for the bottom drawer and giving herself a pat down to make sure she's good to go. "Looks like I don't even have time for vending machine lunch."
"A body?" He's pulled two ways. She can hear it in his voice. "Where?" he asks hopefully.
She reads the address off the paper Esposito shoves under her nose. It's miles from him, with the precinct in between. "What do we know, Espo?" She shifts the phone so the mouthpiece faces out.
"Hispanic female vic, late twenties. Male, same, spotted feeling by a black-and-white just pulling up in response to neighbor complaints about a domestic dispute . . ."
"Sounds . . . straightforward." Castle's voice is sullen in her other ear. Like a kid owning up and not happy about it.
She can't help but laugh. She waves Ryan and Esposito toward the elevator with a be right there gesture as she gathers her things, abusing the phone cord along the way. "Not exciting enough to tear you away from a to-do list?"
"You'll be done by the time I make it all the way up to the scene." She hears a clang in the background like he might actually be kicking something.
"You're not coming?" She doesn't mean it to sound so shocked. So accusing, but she's surprised. Disappointed, if she lets herself think about it. And . . . touched. Impressed, she thinks, smiling to herself. "You're skipping a murder?"
For me? She doesn't add that. It's too strange in too many ways, but she hears his grin down the line. Feels her own still tugging at her cheeks.
"Only a really boring one," he says, adding hastily, "You'll call me if it gets good?"
"I'll call you even if it doesn't get good." She hears her name. Esposito sounding impatient. Her head swivels to the elevator. It's halfway full and Ryan's looking sheepish as he holds the door. "I have to . . . Castle . . ."
"Go." She can picture him squaring his shoulders. Bearing up. "Catch me a bad guy, Beckett."
"I will." She stretches the cord as far as she can. Going and not going. "And I'll call. Later. I'll call, Castle."
"Later," he says, and she can still hear the smile.
It's a lot later. Even without endless running around and a case that never gets much more interesting than the body drop itself promised, she's pushing it when she finally leaves the precinct. She makes it to her dad's for dinner and somehow the second, late afternoon incident interview winds up being a blessing.
It had gone well, thanks in no small part to well-made, to-the-point statements from Montgomery and Ryan and Esposito. Another from Jordan Shaw that had managed to minimize the going-rogue aspects of their involvement-hers and Castle's-and make some of her lucky, split-second guesses sound calculated.
Her dad is interested in the ins and outs of it. Two different levels of law enforcement with warring interests, each learning how to play well with others. It's his kind of thing and they manage to talk mostly around the whats and wherefores of Scott Dunn wanting to kill her.
And at some point they just talk. They linger over plates they've long since picked clean, and it's the kind of quiet conversation they should both try to make more time for. They clear the table put the kitchen to rights side-by-side. It's companionable. It's good, and still, she's exhausted by the end of it. Crawling into bed with the phone in her hand.
"You called!" He answers on the first ring without even saying her name.
She's a little taken aback. A little hurt by how surprised he sounds. "I said I would."
"And you're a woman of your word," he says quickly. "And I'm glad. It's just late, that's all. You must be tired."
"Not that tired." A yawn creeps in at the end, ruining her stubborn answer.
He laughs, of course. "Not a snoop. Terrible liar. Like I said. Weirdest detective ever."
Snoop. It reminds her that she hasn't looked at the list in hours. Hasn't made any kind of plan for the next day and how she's going to accomplish everything. She taps the screen to put him on speaker and navigates to the app. "Castle, thank you for . . ." She trails off, staring. "Everything?"
"Not quite," he says, downplaying it. "But I made a dent."
"More than a dent." She runs her thumb down the long column of checkmarks. "The rest of this can probably wait for the weekend. Most of these, anyway." Her breath rushes out of her. She feels heavy and relieved on the bed. "Thank you," she says again. It's inadequate. Wholly inadequate, but she can't think what else to say.
"Don't thank me yet." She hears him take breath. Bearing up, just like earlier. "There's a problem with the keys to the new place."
"Keys. You actually got what's his name to call you back?" She's impressed and working on a new wave of worry at the same time.
"Bruno, if you can believe it. And I did better than getting him to call me back." He sounds proud of himself, but it doesn't last. "I pinned him down and got him to meet me, but it looks like they used the wrong blank for the door to the apartment. And the one for the door from the street to the lobby sticks pretty bad . . ."
"Shit." She doesn't mean for it to slip out. She doesn't mean to sound ungrateful, but it's a domino effect. Without the keys, she can't do any of the things left on the list. Without the keys, she's stuck here for another night, and . . . "It's . . . sorry, Castle. Thank you. Again. I can . . . I'll figure something out . . ."
"You don't . . ." He breaks off. Uncomfortable all of a sudden. "I kind of read Bruno the riot act."
She laughs, picturing it. "Well, at least you weren't armed."
"Armed! You have such an unfair advantage!" He's going along. Laughing, too, but there's still something awkward in it. A confession he hasn't made. "But I . . . I was kind of in the moment and I kind of yelled until he said he'd meet me with the new ones."
"Ok," she frowns, still not getting it. "Where and when? I'll just . . ."
"That's . . . He's kind of a weasel. Swore the only time he could make it was 10:30. And you've got . . ."
She can hear his teeth grit. He's unreasonably irritated by the round-and-round of the incident interviews. Unreasonably annoyed that he was the one to take the shot and it's still an internal matter. And unreasonably worried that he can't be there to back her, but there's nothing for it. It's not like she can reschedule.
"Shit," she says again. "Sorry. Not you. You've done so much, I'm just . . . I just want to be settled. I'll figure it out."
"I can still get them." He's treading on eggshells. Trying not to overstep, but something else, too. Something he's . . . embarrassed about? Avoiding anyway. "But I have a thing tomorrow afternoon. And it's . . . Mother-related, so it's bound to turn into a production. Hand off could be a problem." She hears him shifting, walking and keys clacking. "I could messenger them, but I don't know if you're comfortable . . . I mean body on the doorstep one night, things exploding the next. You might want to take security a little more seriously . . ."
"Dinner." She blurts it out, suddenly feeling bold. Grateful and wanting to do something, however small, to thank him. But bold, too. About them. This. "You could come to dinner. I mean it'd have to be take out. Because I don't actually own any . . . Or we could go out. Find some place . . . If you're free . . ." He's silent on the other end. Totally silent. She stumbles. "I mean if you're done with your . . . If you want to . . . "
"I want to!" It's his turn to he was stuck in spinning beach ball mode a minute, and maybe he was. "Yes, Beckett. Kate. I'd love . . . I'd love to come to dinner. Or go to dinner." The phone goes quiet, like he's pressing his hand over the mouthpiece, cursing to himself. "Dinner. Yes. Dinner would be great."
A/N: Again, thanks for reading. Hopefully the last chapter will be up in a few days. (Yes, even at this point, I still labored under the delusion it was a three-shot)