fanofthegenre | [ a missing scene ]

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oom,
rick castle

[ a missing scene ]

Coonan dies on the floor of the precinct, his blood pooling out around him.

Beckett doesn't stay long after the body's taken away - just long enough to answer the necessary questions, fill in the details for the official report herself, give the information that proves a discharging of her weapon was necessary. She doesn't look at Castle for the rest of the night, and somewhere in the cluster of policemen and EMTs, he disappears, leaving the chaos behind him.

She heads back to her apartment - late, much later than she'd even anticipated, but she's far from tired and her hands are still stinging from the amount of time she'd spent rinsing them in the women's restroom hours before. She pours herself a drink and starts running the water in the bathtub, ready to soak and hopefully drink enough to pass out eventually.

Because otherwise, she's going to have an impossible time sleeping tonight.

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Beckett stifles a chuckle with one hand, ducking her head to dodge any and all possible launchings of ice cream - faked or otherwise.

"You can't handle what I'm prepared to dish out, Castle," she boasts.

"C'mere," he challenges, jutting up his chin and wagging the ice-cream-loaded finger, "bring. it. on."

Movements made sloppy by the buzz she's still got going, Beckett tries to shove a fingerful of ice cream in his face but slips, putting him in more of a giant bear hug - hardly threatening.

She starts laughing so hard her shoulders shake, harder than she has in a long, long time, and there may even be a tear that slips out with it.

The ice cream zigzags across his neck and disappears into the collar of his coat: along with Beckett who, of course, maintains her record of constantly surprising the hell out of him, even when he should be expecting it. "Whoa --" he catches her with an arm around her waist, pushing a laugh beneath the warm curtain of her hair "-- is this a surrender or a defection?"

"Surrender? Hardly," Beckett declares with a firm shake of her head. She fully intends to stop using Castle as a human brace. Any minute now.

Just as soon as the floor feels like it's going to stop swaying.

"It's a, um - hey, I'm not the writer here. Don't ask me to come up with a good word for what this is."

Close, would be one word that Castle might use. Dangerous would be another, and if he were a smart man, Castle would have left when he'd said he would. Sure, being a lean-to for his partner has its advantages (two of which are pressed against his left shoulder) but she's drunk and he's halfway there and there's a couple of good-sized elephants in the room with them after today's events.

He slides his elbow beneath her armpit and gives her a boost, jostling her up his chest so they're practically nose-to-nose. "Run up the white flag already, detective. Just admit that I out-soft-serve you."

Beckett chooses to go through the motions of pretending she's actually considering her concession. She bites her lower lip, glances upward to the ceiling, feigns deep thought, even hums softly under her breath. It's an obvious act, made even more obvious by the fact that said breath hitches briefly when he hoists her up against him.

"Uh, no," she murmurs, her eyes descending to his face, covered in sticky ice-cream remnants, and she's pretty sure she looks equally ridiculous with the stuff dripping down her cheek.

"Nice effort though, Castle. For a minute, I almost let you get the drop on me."

"Dear Diary, today I got the drop on Detective Beckett. It was truly, truly awesome." His arm slides 'round to the small of her back, support under her arms, so he can tilt her back and see if she's got her feet beneath her. Barely. He swabs one of her high cheekbones with his thumb. "You've got a little something --" a frown "-- well, now I'm just smearing it. Maybe I can corner the market on a brand of Ben & Jerry's that doubles as a nightcream."

She's almost on tiptoe, her center of gravity more than halfway tilted, and she scrunches up her face when the pad of his thumb slides over her cheek, chuckling quietly.

"Now look what you did."

One of her hands mimicks the movement on his cheek, whisking it away with a few swipes of her index finger, proceeding to stick it in between her lips without a thought.

"Mmm, caramelly."

How does she manage to do that?

'Take a simple motor function and turn it into some wild, wanton (perfectly innocent) sex kitten gesture that gets his lower stomach twisting in on itself like a yo-yo that's gone rogue? Christ, he really should have left fifteen minutes ago.

"Maybe I should make us some coffee," he ventures, tiptoeing around propriety -- but in a pair of heavy workboots.

Coffee. Work. Oh, God. Beckett's thought process, however disjointed, manages to make that simple connection, and she sags against Castle with an audible groan.

"I'm gonna have to be at work in a few hours, aren't I?" she asks, innocently posing that thought, though it's more of a question that doesn't really require an answer while she squints up at Castle's face.

"'To serve and protect'," he confirms. 'Moves a bit of copper away from her eyes. "You could always call in sick. Or 'ice-creamed'."

He'd like to see her take some time off, especially after today, but he knows that it's more likely that they'll pass universal health care as soon as Beckett take a day off. 'Have to practically pry her away from her desk with a crowbar.

"No, I can't do that," she wavers, in a tone that almost sounds as if she's going to tack you silly on the end.

"There's files to, you know, file and papers to write stuff on, and that's what I have to do, so I'm going to do it. I've made up my mind." Beckett punctuates her announcement with a decisive nod.

"Yeah, well, you've gotta' be able to say the alphabet backward before you go in to work," he says, sliding his arm underneath her shoulders to take her weight onto himself. "I'm putting you to bed."

"What about you? It's important the writer stays in one piece, too."

She doesn't fight the implied suggestion of sleep - or, at the very least, passing out - leaning forward to rest her head against his shoulder and nestling in.

He starts to haul her across her kitchen toward the hallway. He's only been in her apartment a handful of times -- it was all right, Beckett needed her own territory, away from the bullpen and Castle could respect that -- so he bumps open the doors to a linen closet and a bathroom before he finds the right place.

"The writer," he says, easing her over to the bed, "will get a cab." He lowers her to the edge of the mattress and slips his arm beneath her knees. "Come on, up --" he lifts her feet and tilts her off balance, back into bed.

This answer seems to satisfy Beckett - though, it might also have something to do with the fact that she's starting to drift the moment her head hits the pillows.

"Castle?" she murmurs sleepily, reaching up to cup his cheek while he's still leaning over her. "I don't think I ever told you how sweet you are, and I'm not just saying that 'cause you've got the ice cream on your face."

Her hand was very recently pressed beneath his woolen arm and when she touches his cheek he feels the residual heat in her fingertips. He reaches up to squeeze her small palm.

"Don't tell Ryan and Esposito. I'll never live it down."

He draws the covers around her shoulders, tucking her in.

"What happens in this apartment," she warns, still awake and alert enough to give him a barely threatening glare.

She hides a small yawn behind the back of her hand, then exhales in a soft sigh.

He pinches two copper flyaways from her brow, sliding them back into the messy mop of hair she's let fan out on all sides of her face. His fingers linger for perhaps one or two seconds longer than it would ordinarily take to complete the task. "I'll see you tomorrow," he says, reaching over to click off the tableside lamp.

"Bright'n early," she mumbles, her words barely audible as she rolls over onto her side, resting her hand under her cheek.

Any whiskey-induced dreaming she has that may or may not involve Castle, Beckett will decidedly neglect to tell him about.

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[ a missing scene ]

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