[ where it begins ]

[fanofthegenre]

She needs to change. She keeps a spare set of clothes at the 12th - but they're meant for the shifts where she pulls an all-nighter and doesn't have time to go home.

They're not for this, for the red that stains the white of her sweater - someone else's (I'm fine, Castle, it's not my blood). She was just supposed to have a conversation. She'd hoped it was one that would bring her a little closer to the truth.

Instead, she's got one more murder on her hands, and more questions than answers.

She's not expecting the door to the Bar when she walks in, but a part of her is almost relieved. She needs a place to decompress, to think about her options and to consider her next move before she heads back out into her world, into the place where all of it becomes real again and everyone's counting on her to step up, relying on her to tell them where to go from here.

Because, right now, Beckett's not even sure she knows what to do.

Comments

[trigger_man]

That doesn't help his curiosity any, and he slides off the stool, leaving his coffee.

"Okay, let's go," he says, turning toward the stairs.

[fanofthegenre]

Her room isn't a far distance from the stairs - however, she suspects that one's room is never difficult to find, regardless of what number graces the outside of the door.

She bypasses the living room entirely once they get inside, making a beeline straight for her bedroom - and then her closet in turn, waiting for him to stop alongside her as she stands in front of the closed doors, drawing in a breath.

"There's something I've been working on for a while now - back home, too. But I made copies and brought them here, in case - "

In case my apartment got blown-up again, is what she fails to say, and instead she pulls open the doors, revealing the replica of the murder board in her own apartment, crime scene photos and construction paper covered in Beckett's handwriting taped to the inside.

[trigger_man]

For a moment, Jack's surprised by what he sees inside her closet. He hadn't really known what she was going to show him when he came up, though he would have thought she'd duct-tape him to a chair to make sure he couldn't follow her before he would have thought of this.

But then, looking at the evidence, the surprise fades and he's sucked in. The investigator in him is pulling him toward it, absorbing the evidence, looking for patterns, clues, leads.

Of course the first thing he sees are the crime scene photos, and he knows without reading the note next to it which one is her mother.

"You've put all this together? Since when?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Over the summer," she explains, stepping back, her eyes scanning over the all-too familiar names and dates for what feels like the millionth time. "Didn't have anything else to occupy myself with, and I just - "

Johanna Beckett
Murdered On Saturday, January 9, 1999
In an Alley on the Lower West Side

" - started to try and see if I could find a connection, somehow, between my mom and the others."

[trigger_man]

The look he gives her is a searching, maybe slightly concerned one. Not that he can blame her for spending time off the job studying everything she can about her mom's case, but he knows it's possible to go a little too far down that rabbit hole.

"And you found one?" he says, pointing to a piece of paper mentioning two of the victims having volunteered with her mother on something called the Justice Initiative.

[fanofthegenre]

"The third, he was a document clerk at the courthouse," she adds, nodding slowly.

"Up until now, I'd always thought the connection was a case they all would've been working on together. And then I found out that my mother requested a court file just before she was killed - a file which has since disappeared."

[trigger_man]

"I take it you never found a mention of what that file was or what she was working on that might have related to it."

[fanofthegenre]

"I went through everything she had nine years ago, all her personal files and business papers," she says, shaking her head. "There was nothing."

[trigger_man]

"And the people who knew what it was are dead," Jack says, looking at the victims' photos; the ones taken when they were alive.

"Probably pretty safe to assume it's whatever case Raglan was trying to tell you about."

[fanofthegenre]

Her gaze joins his at the same place on the board, glancing over faces as well as the names attached to them.

"That'd be my guess. And until I figure out exactly what it was, I'm not going to get any closer to the truth than I am right now."

[trigger_man]

"So that's where you start."

He gives her a sidelong look. "I don't want you to stop investigating. I knew that wasn't going to happen. I just want you to be careful, and I want to be there to help."

And to help keep you safe.

[fanofthegenre]

"Right."

She looks away from the closet doors.

"I know. And I don't want to risk any more lives than I absolutely have to."

Especially yours.

[trigger_man]

"Shouldn't that be my decision?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Jack - "

Beckett lifts her gaze to his face, then turns, a curtain of dark hair falling forward over one shoulder.

"Don't."

[trigger_man]

Jack clenches his teeth together for a moment, trying to hold in his frustration. He knows this isn't easy for her, he knows that. He's not purposely trying to make it harder. But the thought of staying in here and waiting for her to come back in to tell him what's going on, the thought of doing nothing makes him feel as though the walls are closing in.

"Beckett..." He sighs, staring at a spot on the wall over her shoulder. "This was why when I came in here I didn't want to get close to anyone; because I didn't want to...care about someone and have something happen to them, especially when I couldn't do anything to stop it. I don't want anything to happen to you."

[fanofthegenre]

"Well, forgive me for throwing a wrench into your plans," she says, with a little more bite than she originally intends, though the emotion in her eyes doesn't quite match up with her tone when she turns to him.

"I get it, okay? I've been there. I know how it feels to lose someone you care about, someone you lo - "

Something in her voice breaks and she pauses, reeling, trying to regain control of a situation that's spun out of her grasp long before this conversation even started tonight.

"I didn't expect anything like this to happen when I met you."

[trigger_man]

"Neither did I," he says, running a hand through his hair and squeezing the back of his neck. It was the very type of situation he'd been trying to avoid; don't get close to people, so he couldn't get hurt and so they wouldn't get hurt because of their proximity to him.

For the moment he's at least going to pretend he didn't hear what she almost said, especially because he can't even allow himself to wonder if he could make the same slip.

He reaches out tentatively, putting a hand on her arm. "The thought of going out there with you and getting shot doesn't scare me. The only thing that scares me--scares the hell out of me--is of something happening to...to another one of my friends, and that includes you."

[fanofthegenre]

She's grateful, in fact, that he doesn't address the slip. Not because she realizes she's even made it, but because it's not at the forefront of her mind right now, not as important as what she's got to deal with.

"What am I supposed to do, Jack?" she murmurs, her voice still soft.

"How do you expect me to explain you? To let you get involved? I can't ask you to take on that burden."

[trigger_man]

"I was undercover with a South American drug cartel for six months. I managed to stay hidden and let everyone thing I was dead for eighteen months. I think I can maintain a cover for as long as it takes to catch these guys," Jack says, reassuringly. "And you're not asking; I'm offering."

[fanofthegenre]

She sighs, looking out again over the photos on the homemade board.

"I'm like her sometimes, I think," she says, her gaze lingering on the one of her mother. "She always hated asking for help too."

[trigger_man]

"I think from hearing about her, I can guess that a lot of your good qualities are something you share with her," Jack says, gently.

"It won't surprise you to hear that I do too, but sometimes I know when I have to. And I'm sure you have help, out there. I just want to be one of those people."

[fanofthegenre]

"I'm not going to lie to you and say that I wouldn't appreciate your help," she finally says, turning to him.

"But it's just not a good idea, this time."

[trigger_man]

He's tempted to argue again, to send the conversation spiraling in the same circles as before, but it's pretty obvious he'll just end up back at the same point. Stuck at the same impasse: he wants to help and she doesn't want him out there, or at least doesn't want his help badly enough to override her concerns.

"Fine," he says flatly, unconsciously taking one small step back. "Will you at laast keep me up to date on what's happening with the case?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Of course," she replies, without even missing a beat, but doesn't move in to maintain the same kind of proximity.

"You know I'd keep you in the loop on whatever's going on."

[trigger_man]

"And be careful out there. The closer you get to this guy, the more dangerous it's going to be," he says, his tone gruff.