advent calendar fic: day 09
This tired world could change
Castle | Castle/Beckett | 963 words
Happy Holidays, missymeggins!
It starts the same way it always does: someone dies; it’s a murder. They get called in to investigate. Everything up to this point is predictable, but somewhere after that, things start to go horribly wrong.
It ends like this: the unthinkable happens; they don’t solve the case. They don’t even come close.
No one wants to admit it at first, but after a while they have no choice. They never had much in the way of evidence, even less in terms of motive, and without those, their theories are useless.
She doesn’t like it, not at all; defeat is not a word in her vocabulary. But he is the one who can’t let it go.
A young girl dies, a murderer gets away.
It’s a terrible way for a story to end.
He would know; after all, he’s the writer.
---
“You do know it’s Saturday, right?”
She has been leaning on the door frame for almost five minutes before she finally speaks up, alerting him to her presence. She had stopped by the station to pick up the jacket she accidentally left at her desk the night before, thinking she would just pop in and out and no one would even know she had been there.
She hadn’t counted on this, though. Hadn’t counted on him.
She should know better by now.
From the spare desk where he’s sitting, Castle looks up at her, startled, and frowning. The crease etched in his forehead that makes him look older, world-weary, and entirely unlike himself. When it comes to unsolved murders, she is used to this situation being the other way around.
He manages to recover quickly. (It’s really infuriating how he does that sometimes.)
“Do you?”
“Saturday night, in fact.” She gives him a nod, one expressive eyebrow raised. “Do I want to know what you’re doing here?”
That’s when she sees the case file spread out on the desk in front of him.
He shrugs. He doesn’t look quite right behind a desk, especially not like this.
“Want to take a break?” she asks.
It isn’t much as offers go, but it seems to do the trick. He closes the file in front of him, aimlessly reshuffling the loose paper, and sighs. “I was ready to call it a night anyway.”
“Okay.” An encouraging smile tugs at her lips. “C’mon then,” she urges, feeling the tension of the week, the case, somehow begin to dissolve. (Because on top of that, she’s also been worried about him.) “I bet if we go now, we can still make happy hour somewhere.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re buying,” he quips.
“Hah. You wish.” With an emphatic turn of her head, she starts walking towards the elevator.
But when he catches up to her, he isn’t frowning anymore.
---
They don’t actually make happy hour, not that either of them notices.
She takes him to one of her favorite bars, grabs the last table in the back, and orders both of their drinks before he has a chance to get a word in edgewise.
(Later, she will remember this as one of the first instances of this occurring, in all the time they’ve worked together.)
He’s a round ahead of her when she orders her third gin and tonic, and they’ve been talking about nothing in particular, nothing of importance, when the question comes.
“How do you do it?”
He looks at her with wide, sad eyes, and she just shrugs and stares back, the grip on her drink tightening, because there is no good answer she can give him.
“You just dust yourself off and come back the next day,” she says finally.
He tilts his head and shadows obscure part of his face, but she can still see the hardening of his features, the way his eyes narrow in question. “Does that really work?”
“Yes and no,” she answers truthfully. “It works because it’s the only choice you have sometimes, but that doesn’t make it better.”
Nodding slowly, he sighs and sets his empty tumbler down on the table with a muted thud. She glances down at her own glass, then back up at him.
“Having you around helps,” she admits with a grin. There was a time when this would have been a hushed confession, unintentional or embarrassed, but not anymore. Her voice is clear and confident, the words come easily. She knows exactly what she’s saying, and she wants him to hear it.
She wants him to know.
“You, too,” he replies, and for the first time all night, he smiles back.
---
In the back of her mind, she wonders why now? and what is it about this case?, but she keeps her questions to herself. She recognizes that there is no rhyme or reason to these things, that sometimes they just are and there is nothing you can do about it.
When he hides a yawn (badly) behind one hand, she calls him a cab and waits with him until he is safely inside.
“I haven’t given up yet,” he says as she stands with one foot on the curb and her hand against the side of the car door, ready to close it.
“I haven’t either,” she agrees. “I never do.”
---
They never do find the murderer; it isn’t their first unsolved case together, and it won’t be their last.
Their next case, however, is as by the book as they come. In this particular instance, she welcomes the predictability. There is no relief (there never can be where murder is concerned), but there is an added satisfaction when she closes the handcuffs around the murderer’s wrists.
Afterwards, she takes Castle out for drinks again anyway.
Castle | Castle/Beckett | 963 words
Happy Holidays, missymeggins!
It starts the same way it always does: someone dies; it’s a murder. They get called in to investigate. Everything up to this point is predictable, but somewhere after that, things start to go horribly wrong.
It ends like this: the unthinkable happens; they don’t solve the case. They don’t even come close.
No one wants to admit it at first, but after a while they have no choice. They never had much in the way of evidence, even less in terms of motive, and without those, their theories are useless.
She doesn’t like it, not at all; defeat is not a word in her vocabulary. But he is the one who can’t let it go.
A young girl dies, a murderer gets away.
It’s a terrible way for a story to end.
He would know; after all, he’s the writer.
---
“You do know it’s Saturday, right?”
She has been leaning on the door frame for almost five minutes before she finally speaks up, alerting him to her presence. She had stopped by the station to pick up the jacket she accidentally left at her desk the night before, thinking she would just pop in and out and no one would even know she had been there.
She hadn’t counted on this, though. Hadn’t counted on him.
She should know better by now.
From the spare desk where he’s sitting, Castle looks up at her, startled, and frowning. The crease etched in his forehead that makes him look older, world-weary, and entirely unlike himself. When it comes to unsolved murders, she is used to this situation being the other way around.
He manages to recover quickly. (It’s really infuriating how he does that sometimes.)
“Do you?”
“Saturday night, in fact.” She gives him a nod, one expressive eyebrow raised. “Do I want to know what you’re doing here?”
That’s when she sees the case file spread out on the desk in front of him.
He shrugs. He doesn’t look quite right behind a desk, especially not like this.
“Want to take a break?” she asks.
It isn’t much as offers go, but it seems to do the trick. He closes the file in front of him, aimlessly reshuffling the loose paper, and sighs. “I was ready to call it a night anyway.”
“Okay.” An encouraging smile tugs at her lips. “C’mon then,” she urges, feeling the tension of the week, the case, somehow begin to dissolve. (Because on top of that, she’s also been worried about him.) “I bet if we go now, we can still make happy hour somewhere.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re buying,” he quips.
“Hah. You wish.” With an emphatic turn of her head, she starts walking towards the elevator.
But when he catches up to her, he isn’t frowning anymore.
---
They don’t actually make happy hour, not that either of them notices.
She takes him to one of her favorite bars, grabs the last table in the back, and orders both of their drinks before he has a chance to get a word in edgewise.
(Later, she will remember this as one of the first instances of this occurring, in all the time they’ve worked together.)
He’s a round ahead of her when she orders her third gin and tonic, and they’ve been talking about nothing in particular, nothing of importance, when the question comes.
“How do you do it?”
He looks at her with wide, sad eyes, and she just shrugs and stares back, the grip on her drink tightening, because there is no good answer she can give him.
“You just dust yourself off and come back the next day,” she says finally.
He tilts his head and shadows obscure part of his face, but she can still see the hardening of his features, the way his eyes narrow in question. “Does that really work?”
“Yes and no,” she answers truthfully. “It works because it’s the only choice you have sometimes, but that doesn’t make it better.”
Nodding slowly, he sighs and sets his empty tumbler down on the table with a muted thud. She glances down at her own glass, then back up at him.
“Having you around helps,” she admits with a grin. There was a time when this would have been a hushed confession, unintentional or embarrassed, but not anymore. Her voice is clear and confident, the words come easily. She knows exactly what she’s saying, and she wants him to hear it.
She wants him to know.
“You, too,” he replies, and for the first time all night, he smiles back.
---
In the back of her mind, she wonders why now? and what is it about this case?, but she keeps her questions to herself. She recognizes that there is no rhyme or reason to these things, that sometimes they just are and there is nothing you can do about it.
When he hides a yawn (badly) behind one hand, she calls him a cab and waits with him until he is safely inside.
“I haven’t given up yet,” he says as she stands with one foot on the curb and her hand against the side of the car door, ready to close it.
“I haven’t either,” she agrees. “I never do.”
---
They never do find the murderer; it isn’t their first unsolved case together, and it won’t be their last.
Their next case, however, is as by the book as they come. In this particular instance, she welcomes the predictability. There is no relief (there never can be where murder is concerned), but there is an added satisfaction when she closes the handcuffs around the murderer’s wrists.
Afterwards, she takes Castle out for drinks again anyway.