Try a Brunette

By: Lesera128

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing... Obviously. Just playing in someone else's sandbox for a bit.

Summary: Castle, Esposito, and Ryan retire to the Old Haunt for drinks after work and end up dissecting Castle's romantic history. Shades of Castle/Beckett. One-shot. Complete.

"Your problem, brother, is that you've never tried a brunette," Javier Esposito said as he effortlessly edged his pool cue forward and sunk the seven ball in the left corner pocket.

Over the tip of his beer mug, Castle raised an eyebrow with a smirk. He chuckled as he said, "I can assure you, Esposito, I am well acquainted with several lovely brunettes that have had the pleasure of my company in the past." He paused for a moment as he waggled his eyebrows and added, "My intimate company if you get what I mean."

Esposito shook his head as he moved so Ryan could line up his shot. "Naaw, man, I don't meaning wining and dining and romancing some beautiful air head."

Ryan nodded, "Those don't really count, you know."

"Then, pray, tell me what you mean," Castle said as he took another swig of beer.

Esposito came over to the bar and reached for his own mug. He grabbed it and downed a long draft before he looked at Castle and said, "Look at your history, Castle. Serious women, how many of them have been brunettes?"

"Aside from Kelly Pickens in the third grade?" Castle said. He bit his lip for a moment before nodding and clarified, "How do you define 'serious'?"

"Oh, that's easy. How many women have you told that you loved them?" Ryan said, as he missed his shot.

Castle opened his mouth and was about to retort when Esposito cut him off... "And meant it."

Castle's mouth promptly closed. He pursed his lips together and was quiet for a moment. Esposito shrugged. "Start with the obvious ones, man."

"Yeah," Ryan added. "What about Alexis' mom?"

"Meredith?" Castle said. The men nodded. "Red-head, true."

"You know," Ryan said as he moved to the bar and let Castle take his place at the pool table, "I have always wanted to ask, is that her real hair color?"

Castle was quiet for a moment before he called out, "Eight ball, side pocket." Esposito and Ryan frowned as they realized that with the shot, if he sunk it, Castle would win the game. Castle then promptly sunk the shot exactly, as he had called, and widely grinned, as guffaws came from Esposito's and Ryan's general direction.

"And I believe that game goes to me, gentlemen," Castle said, moving to retake his seat at the bar. Grabbing for his beer mug, he took a long drink and then looked up at Ryan. His brow furrowed for a second, before he shrugged and said, "Meredith is a natural red head, but she does dye her hair a deeper red. Her natural color is not as brassy as her current one. Think Alexis' hair color, but a bit darker."

Esposito nodded, "So aside from the killer body, how'd you ever end up marrying a woman like her?" He raised his own glass before he clarified, "Not that she isn't drop dead gorgeous and all, but, I don't know... She just seems too..."

"Vapid? Clingy? Shallow?" Castle supplied the words as Esposito struggled to find a descriptor that would not be too offensive to his friend, as even if Meredith was his ex-wife, she was still the mother of his child.

"Yeah, shallow," Esposito finally agreed, comfortable in using the word since Castle had supplied it himself.

Quiet for another moment, Castle said, "I could lie and say she was just one the most beautiful and exciting and... Ahh, talented women I've ever been with... but then, that wouldn't exactly be lying now."

Esposito raised an eyebrow as Castle's narrowed and his sly smile broadened. "Come on, bro, not more of that "deep-fried twinkie" analogy crap that you foisted on us the last time."

Castle raised his own eyebrow in response at that comment, but remained silent. Suddenly turning serious, he added, "Okay, cards on the table then. If I were being 100% honest, and I mean the type of honest that stays only between gentlemen friends like ourselves, never to be repeated again, ESPECIALLY to any members of the fairer sex, I might say that the fact that Meredith could have saved me from having to kill my own father in a great Oedipus-style Greek tragedy would be accurate - if I even knew where the guy was. But I digress."

Looking down at his glass, Castle realized it was empty. Placing it on the bar, he signaled to his bartender, "Mitch?"

Coming over almost immediately, the graying bartender reached for the empty mug as he said, "What else can I get for you, Mr. Castle?"

"I'm gonna have another round if we are going to continue with this little impromptu inquisitory exercise," Castle said. Nodding to Esposito and Ryan, "What about you guys?"

Looking down at their mugs, and realizing that Castle was in an unusually forthright mindset, both men nodded their desire to have the beer mugs refilled.

"Another round then, my good Mitch," Castle said with a smile. The bartender nodded and came back shortly with topped off mugs.

Reaching for his, Castle drank a deep swig of the beer, as if to give him some more courage to continue his comments. Realizing that now was not a moment to press, and that they would get better results if they just let the author talk, Esposito and Ryan remained silent. Castle studied the beads of condensation on the beer mug before placing it on the bar. He then began to talk again.

"I guess what attracted me to Meredith in the first place wasn't the fact that she was just as gorgeous as the hundred other actresses at the PR party I met her at when she was still a struggling actress who had just landed this bit part on a soap here in New York. Like I said, she was gorgeous, but there was something that was different about her. She was so vivacious and so carefree in a way I never have been. And, I guess, in a way, there was something about her that might have reminded me of my mother when she was younger. The way Meredith would light up when I would tell her I had tickets to the latest Broadway premiere or the moment when she knew she had done something that pleased me, she in turn would be completely pleased with herself." Castle was quiet for a moment, and then looked away from the bar towards a spot on the far wall when he said softly, "But that fleeting resemblance to my mother disappeared on the day she told me she was pregnant, and that if I wanted her to keep the baby, we had to get married," Castle said.

Esposito let out a slow breath as the heaviness of the conversation suddenly weighed down on them.

Castle immediately looked up and said, "Now, wait a second, don't get me wrong, it wasn't like she blackmailed me into going to Atlantic City and getting married. I think in her mind she just saw motherhood as another role, and to be perfect in that role, it meant that she had to be married. So, I said what the hell. It wasn't like there was anything more interesting going on in my life at that time. I hadn't started the Storm series yet, and I was somewhat aimlessly wondering from standalone book to standalone book. But, then she had Alexis, and the Storm series caught fire, and things started to change. We drifted a part, and she eventually moved to LA, and I stayed here in New York with the baby."

"And that was that?" Ryan said.

Castle shrugged, "Yeah, and that was that."

"So, the red-head is down," Esposito said. "Then came...?"

"Then came the blond," Castle said with a chuckle. "Twice."

"Gina," Ryan laughed.

Nodding, Castle confirmed, "Gina."

"I always thought she was more your type than Meredith," Ryan said. "More... I don't know... intellectual maybe?"

Castle laughed. "Intellectual?" He was silent for a few seconds before he shook his head, "I don't know if I would say intellectual. You all act like Meredith barely had enough brain power to walk and chew gum at the same time. She has to have some level of intelligence since Lord knows that Alexis' smarts couldn't all have come from me."

"Genes have been known to skip some generations, haven't they?" Esposito grinned.

"I don't know," Castle said with a toothy grin, "But we could ask *your* mom about that right?"

Esposito's lips pursed, but Ryan, too interested in Gina's story to let Castle get off track, elbowed his partner in the gut and prompted, "So... Gina?"

"Gina," Castle said, "Gina... Hmmm, what to say about her..."

"How about how it started?" Ryan asked.

"Or why?" Esposito said.

"Hmmm, how or why...? Well, to be honest, they're probably the same thing in Gina's case," Castle said. "The how and the why of it was Derrick Storm."

"Storm?" Ryan asked.

Castle nodded. "Yeah. Black Pawn assigned her to me as my new editor just after I had finished my first draft of the first Storm novel. I think they realized how important that book could be to a series and wanted to give me as much help as possible in laying a strong foundation for the series using that book as a starting point." Reaching for his glass, but not taking a drink, Castle sighed. "God, how many hours we spent editing... Going over proofs. Gina was actually the one who convinced me getting out of the city would be a good change of scenery for that part of the process. She had grown up out in the Hamptons, and suggested that we rent a house for a few weeks. She was right about the atmosphere being a really good change of pace for me when I needed to concentrate on writing. That first summer, I didn't buy the house. The next one I did though, once I had seen how much Alexis loved the beach," Castle said.

Nodding, Esposito said, "So why did that go bad... Same reason each time?"

"Nope," Castle said immediately. "First time... Well, the first time it was complicated. Gina was... is... great to be around when you've done all the work that you've supposed to have done. And we did have more in common than Meredith and I ever did... She loved to read. We could take about different authors and their works for hours... But, there were times when I just didn't want to write. Even if a deadline was looming, it was more important sometimes for me to go see a Knicks game or take Alexis to the zoo. The same thing that makes Gina such a great editor turned her into a lousy wife. Sometimes she just pushed too much. She didn't know when to let up," Castle said. Reaching for his beer, Castle took a drink and said, "She didn't understand towards the end of the Storm series... Not the last book, but the second to last, why I was getting bored with the books because Storm was such a great character. From her standpoint as an editor, I could understand where she was coming from... From her standpoint as a wife, her not being able to support me in my feelings, well that started us on the downward spiral."

"And what ended that spiral?" Ryan asked.

Shrugging, Castle said, "That last thing you might think. I wanted to have another child. Gina didn't. A semi-independent child like Alexis she could handle. Taking care of an infant was not something that meshed with her lifestyle as a high power editor."

"And so that was that?" Ryan prompted.

Castle nodded again, "And that was that."

"For the first time," Esposito clarified.

Looking up over the rim of his beer glass, Castle conceded, "Right, that was that... for the first time."

"And for the second?" Esposito asked.

Castle sighed, and took a moment longer to answer than either man expected. Looking off in the distance, Castle's eyebrows narrowed as he looked in the general vicinity of the bar's front door. He didn't take his eyes away from the door as he said, "And for the second... Well, it's a complicated tale, gentlemen. Suffice to say, the direction I was being pulled in was not one which Gina could follow me down in any capacity but as an editor."

Ryan narrowed his own eyes as Esposito hit Castle in the leg. "Hey! That hurt," Castle said, his attention coming to focus on Esposito.

"What the hell does that mean?" Esposito asked.

"What the hell does what mean?" Castle said, as his eyes started to glance back in the direction of the bar door and he continued to rub the spot on his leg where Esposito had hit him.

"What direction could Gina not follow you down in 'any capacity but as an editor'?" Esposito said. "That's convoluted even for you, bro."

Ryan chuckled, "He means Nikki Heat, Javier."

Esposito's head whipped around. "And just how did you get that from 'any capacity but as an editor'?"

Ryan chuckled. He nodded in Castle's direction, who was once again distracted from something coming from in the direction of the bar's doorway.

"Easy, man," Ryan said.

Apparently not hearing the men, Castle's gaze was riveted as a form spotted them, waved, and made her way to the back of the bar. Kate Beckett threaded her way through the crowds to the pool table, a smile on her face as she nodded at him.

"Hey guys," Beckett said.

"Detective Beckett," Castle said, the prior distraction immediately evaporated. "To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?"

"I'm not early, am I?" Beckett said looking at her watch. "You did say 10:30, right, Ryan?"

Nodding, Ryan stood from his stool and handed Beckett his pool cue. "Right on time. It's our turn to rack the balls."

"Great," Beckett said as she moved to shrug off her leather jacket. Tossing it on Ryan's empty chair, she moved towards the pool table.

"What are you drinking, Beckett?" Esposito finally asked.

Beckett shrugged. "Whatever's on tap that you guys are drinking is fine with me."

At her words, Castle finally snapped out of his reverie as he looked at Ryan and said, "I'm on it, Beckett." Gesturing towards Mitch, Castle placed Beckett's order and then turned to Ryan with a question, "I thought this was a guy's night out?"

Ryan chuckled, "And I knew if I was going to have a chance in hell of winning any of my prior winnings back from you two, I needed to even the score. So I invited Beckett for a game of doubles."

"Uh huh," Esposito said, suspiciously.

Mitch returned with Beckett's drink, and Castle immediately took it over to her. The pair began to chat easily as Beckett continued to rack the balls. Ryan smiled at Esposito with a nod, "Nikki Heat, bro."

"What?" Esposito said in confusion.

Ryan chuckled. "You wanted to know how I got Nikki Heat from that convoluted garbage Castle was spewing earlier about Gina? The answer was that I didn't."

"Meaning?" Esposito asked, sounding slight annoyed.

Ryan laughed again, "Meaning, that I already knew the answer as to why Gina didn't work the second time." Nodding at Beckett and Castle who were themselves laughing about something, Ryan said, "He'd already tried a blond. By the time of the second go with Gina, even if he didn't consciously realized it, Castle had already decided to try a brunette."

"Try a brunette?" Esposito said.

Ryan nodded. "Aside from the good old adage of third-time's the charm..."

"Even if you ignore the fact that Gina was actually both two and three," Esposito interrupted.

"Even if," Ryan conceded. "It's easy to see that the reason Castle's never, to borrow Beckett's slang of having only one and being done, actually been 'done', it's because he never really had the right one to begin with... the redheads and blonds... they didn't work because Castle's not a redhead or blond type of guy."

"And so you're saying he can have his 'one and done' if he has a brunette this time?" Esposito asked. "Hair color is really that important in this equation?"

Ryan shrugged, "If he has that brunette?" Ryan was quiet for a moment and then said, "Yeah, bro, I think if Castle tries the *right* brunette, I think he's done this time."

Castle's laughter floated over the pair as Beckett shot him a look of playful annoyance. Ryan looked from their general direction back to Esposito. "And, to think, all he had to do to hit the jackpot was just to try a brunette. Hmmm. Go figure."

~The End~