Close Encounters 0

Happy Birthday, Jessie

This is the story before the story; this is where
he first loves her.
May we all be loved from afar.

Agent Castle loitered on the street outside the 12th Precinct and ignored the vagrant who was giving him the evil eye. Castle's suit jacket was pulled tight across his shoulders, ill-fitting after a long few months abroad. It meant he'd have to have them all replaced when he managed to get back to the CIA apartment his clothes called home, but for now, no sudden movements.

He wasn't looking to Hulk out.

Castle had been hitting the gym harder this time, after that near-fatal encounter with the North Korean ninja (he was going to persist in calling him a ninja, otherwise the idea that the guy had just plain gotten the drop on Castle was shameful and irritating to the extreme). But he'd gained ten pounds of pure muscle, and just let that ninja drop out of the sky today. Just let him.

South of his location and along the Hudson River, his team had the Chinese consulate well covered, and his phone gave him the status updates one after another; alerts came in and he glanced at them from time to time but his eyes were on the NYPD substation across the street.

He was waiting for her.

She came out at just that moment and his chest caught against the fabric of his jacket and strangled him even as she headed down the sidewalk. Away from him. Her badge and weapon were out of sight under her blazer, her walk was purposeful but not strident, and she held her phone in one hand but didn't commit the rookie's mistake of sticking her nose in it.

She was the consummate professional.

She was gorgeous.

He wasn't supposed to care.

Agent Castle couldn't help himself; he opened the door to an establishment dubiously named Remy's, and he stepped inside the warm wood interior. She was at a booth, staring out the window, and she startled to awareness just as his eyes slid past her.

But it was the waitress coming to her with a pink milkshake and a burger - veggie? had to be - and fries, and the detective regarded the food like it was the holy grail.

Or the answer to her mystery.

Which Castle himself could most likely have cleared up in moments, or at least great swathes of it, but he wouldn't.

He wanted to spy on her.

She checked her watch as she ate, and while Castle was being shown a booth (no thanks, how about over here? placing her directly in his line of sight, studying her profile from the corner of his eye), she ate with relish and absorption, as if the act itself was often mechanical and hit or miss, so she wanted to make this one count.

She scraped a hand through her hair and then jerked it down, stared at it, and he realized - french fry grease, salt, something - and she wiped her fingers off on a napkin even though he thought he saw a movement towards her jeans, like she was in the habit of just swiping it there but in public she'd stalled the motion.

He settled back in his seat and ordered the same as the woman - veggie burger with lettuce and sprouts and tomato, french fries even though he never touched them, and the pink milkshake (ah, it was strawberry according to the menu). He would see the scene from her perspective, watch her as he might a lover, cataloging every sigh and quirk, following every nuance of her behavior until he knew her better than she knew herself.

Kate Beckett. The detective with the long hair in waves and the tight jeans and narrow hips and those sinful, forever legs that he could already feel wrapped around his waist and that mouth - how it would drop open and her eyes would darken and his name would rip from her throat-

Except.

What would his name be?

There his fantasy collapsed. She was a job. Detective Kate Beckett had inherited his Chinese spy, and he had to know what she knew.

No more than that.

Stick to the program, Richard.

When the call came in on her iphone, he realized that she'd skipped out on the 12th just to have this moment to think. To step back and reassess the case.

She sat up straight and banged a knee into the table top in her effort to get out of the booth, but it did the job and attracted the waitress's attention. Beckett must be a regular because she circled her finger at the table and bolted from the diner with the phone at her ear.

Castle watched the waitress come slowly over, pick up the plate and the milkshake. But instead of bussing the table, the woman was carrying everything back to the register at the front and boxing it up, pouring the milkshake into a to-go cup.

Huh.

Beckett hadn't paid and the waitress knew to leave her stuff for later. He watched as the woman carried it all to the back - presumably to a walk-in fridge where it would wait for the detective's return.

It was a usual thing then, this dashing off in the middle of her meal.

He wasn't stressed about following her because he had her phone GPS tracked and the second team would be on her. And at just that moment, Eastman's ID lit up his screen and Castle answered.

"You got her?"

"Free and clear. She met her team outside the 12th and they are on their way."

"No stops?"

"No stops," Eastman confirmed. "She's a looker."

"You got a wife," Castle grinned.

"I'm thinking for you."

"Shut your mouth," he laughed, but the idea of it kicked at his heart. "Stay on her until ten. I'll come spell you."

"All righty. You're keeping this off-books, aren't you?"

He winced. "You know Black would-"

"I know. I also know that he turns a blind eye to your. . .creative thinking."

"Not for long," Castle huffed out, rubbing a hand down his face. He pushed the plate of fries away, sickened by the grease. "I have maybe a week following the detective before Black gets pissed and yanks me off. She's gotta find something."

"She will. You saw her solve rate."

Yeah, but he'd also seen her staring out the window, searching for a clue, needing a little push. "I have got to find this Chinese mole," he muttered. "That last op in Shanghai got-"

"Shanghaied," Eastman chuckled.

Castle snorted into the phone; he could always count on Eastman lightening the mood. "Yeah, in a manner of speaking. I have no idea why the North Korean Ninja was following this one, but it's putting a lot of good men at risk. I can't have that. Black knows I'll do whatever it takes to get that information back, even if it means breaking a few rules."

"You're not usually a rule-breaker," Eastman said non-committally.

"No," he said tersely. Not after Ireland. "Damn, I wish we'd gotten to that body first."

Eastman was silent, as Eastman always was when Castle was still gnawing on a mission that didn't sit right with him. He didn't like their options - staking out one of the good guys in the hopes that she'd find the information they were looking for and flush out the Chinese operative.

And yeah, technically it was illegal, spying on a US citizen, an NYPD detective no less. But he didn't have a choice. He had to trust that she could handle herself in whatever situation arose - North Korean Ninja or no.

Eastman cleared his throat. "Stop going over it and over it in your head, Castle. Just do the job."

He sighed and watched the waitress come back and wipe down the empty table. She headed for him with a polite smile, checking on his progress, the bill in her hand.

"I'll call before the hand-off," he said suddenly, not even saying good-bye as he ended it. He snagged the waitress's sleeve before she could pass him. "Miss? I'd like to pay for that woman's meal - the one who ran out."

"Oh, no. She's not a thief or nothing. Just a cop; she runs out like that a lot."

Castle gave her a brilliant smile. "I know. I saw her shield. That's why I'd like to pay for it."

The waitress flushed and took a few steps towards his table. "That's real kind of you."

"She keep a running tab?" Castle asked.

The waitress had the smarts to actually pause, narrow her eyes a moment in suspicion. Good girl, he thought. You never knew.

Castle shook his head and fished out his wallet, pulled his own credit card - an alias, but not paid for with CIA funds. "Here. You take this, bill me for whatever her tab is, put mine on it too. I won't ask any more questions."

The waitress hesitated, but she seemed to come to a decision and she plucked the card from his fingers with an easy grin.

"All right. Be right back with the slip for you to sign."

He watched her head for the register and he crossed his arms and put them on the table, studied the way the afternoon light came in the glass and warmed the wood.

He'd see her tonight.

Though she wouldn't see him.

He spent his afternoon at the Chinese consulate, or rather, just outside of it. Entirely in vain, no lead in sight, but he got a good look at the principal players and he knew something was brewing just by the constant flow of traffic in and out of those gates.

He also had the idea that the North Korean Ninja might be on loan to the Chinese for the duration of this mission, and he wondered if one of these catering vans had slipped him inside. Wouldn't put it past them.

When the sun had long since dipped down and the cold had permanently seeped into his car, Castle turned the engine and pulled out, a head nod to Foster who was taking over his station. Foster was parked in a black sedan, unlike Castle's favorite Range Rover, but they weren't going for clandestine here. Let the Chinese know they were being watched.

He had two hours before he had to relieve Eastman, so he used the time to scout a location for a later thing - even to himself, he didn't label it, didn't let the mission parameters enter his head because then he couldn't look at it too closely. What he had to do in a few weeks' time.

If he closed the Chinese spy ring and got his man - and that information - he might not have to.

All depended on Kate Beckett and how far he could go with her.

Well. No like that.

Though that would be nice.

He had a parabolic mic pointed at her apartment but it was obtrusive and offered too many other inconsequential conversations to his ears. He bet Beckett wasn't much of a talker anyway, so he listened intently for a few minutes' time before putting it away. He was camped out in the back of the surveillance van parked in the alley beside her building, and they had eyes on the front entrance, the back, and the trash chute.

It was enough.

Be honest, he told himself. He'd put the mic away because it was too much of a temptation to listen in while went about her nightly routine. Whatever it was. He didn't know.

Yet.

The van had sliding panels high up on the side near the back doors, and he opened one up, the glass tinted to keep others from looking in. Castle put the binoculars to his eyes and angled them towards her window.

The light was on. He saw the dark shadow of her profile as a smudged, indistinct suggestion of femininity. She passed, moving in the direction of what he remembered was the kitchen, and the golden light of her home stayed steady and true.

She was up for a while.

He was content to lean back in the metal folding chair and watch the lamp at her window, letting its glow haze any pictures that might spring to mind.

But after a few minutes, he realized it was impossible.

He was crowded with images - real or imagined - of the way her body could fold up so small in that booth at Remy's and then unfurl so lithe and long as she headed back for the precinct - and how her body might fold in her bed or his and how she might rise above him, svelte and sure. He kept his eyes on that apartment window and could almost see the strong, delicate fingers scraping back her hair, the jut of her collarbones out from the thin tshirt she'd wear to bed, the elegant line of her arm as she reached for the fridge and took out some light snack - yogurt or a bottle of water.

She'd open it, either pulling the foil lid off or untwisting the cap, and she'd suck a drop of it from her thumb as she headed for the couch. Once more, those legs would fold up and her body compact neatly in the cushions and she'd lean against the arm and for one, held-breath moment, she would finally rest.

And then her mind, restless and ever-seeking, would start up once more and she'd put the bottle or yogurt down decisively on the coffee table and stand, and she would pace-

Castle grunted when her shadow passed the window, just as he'd imagined.

A trick of coincidence, that was all.

He didn't know her. He'd been following her for a handful of hours; there was no way he knew how her mind worked or the routines she had after a long day's fruitless work.

But he did.

He knew her.

He didn't know why he was so certain, but he knew her.

At four her apartment light finally went off.

He sat in the pre-dawn, that fuzzy grey to the air, and he wondered about her. This beautiful, sharp-edged detective whose mind wouldn't stop long enough for her to sleep. He wanted to know - everything.

No husband. No boyfriend. No pets. No hobbies. Her life was the work, the cases, these investigations into murder. Every place she'd gone for the past twenty-four hours related to one of the homicides stacked on her desk. Even at lunch in Remy's, she'd had that introspected, thoughtful cast to her features - still working the case.

All hard lines on the outside, but inside, where that mind whirled and spun and made connections, there was more. There was a life hidden there, shadowed and dark like this four a.m. morning.

He had the urge to introduce a spark, see if she'd light up.

Eastman rapped on the side of the van and Castle opened it up, let his friend hop inside the back. Eastman settled into the extra chair with a wink, tossed a brown bag onto the console.

"From my wife."

Castle grinned back. "I love your wife."

"Not more than me," Eastman said good-naturedly. "Eat it before I do. They're good."

Castle reached out and scooped up the bag, opened it to find two homemade cinnamon rolls wrapped in wax paper. He didn't eat this kind of thing - wasn't on the regimen - but Carrie Eastman's breakfast foods could always tempt him.

He dug the first one out and unwrapped it, wouldn't let himself lick the frosting from his fingers, and took a big bite.

"Damn, this is good," he groaned. Best thing he'd ever put in his mouth. Still hot too. "She woke up at four in the morning to make you cinnamon rolls?"

"Hell, no," Eastman laughed. "She made them yesterday. But she woke up while I was trying to slip out and heated them up, made me take a bag for you."

He grinned around his next bite and took the water bottle that Eastman held out to him, swallowed it down with relish. His eyes tracked to the monitors trained on her apartment and he had the sudden, irrational urge to lay the second cinnamon roll at her doorstep, offer it to her like a gift.

She needed someone in her life with warm cinnamon rolls, someone who could stay up with her until four in the morning or - better yet - turn that light off at midnight and drag her to bed. Any means necessary.