74. My best friend

“Espo,” Castle hisses at an appropriate moment on Monday, being one when neither Ryan nor Beckett are around, “Espo, when d’you think you can get Ryan and Lanie in a bar?"

“Any time, bro. Not like either of them have anything to be doing, ‘s far ‘s I know.”

“Okay. I’m going to try for O’Leary.  Soon as I’ve got that nailed, I’ll tell you, and you can tell Ryan, and sucker him into letting on to Lanie.”

Castle raids Beckett’s phone – she really should change her passcode because he’s watched her tap it in often enough that he knows it – for O’Leary’s number, stores it in his own list of contacts as a far better alternative to calling O’Leary’s precinct, and then wanders off before Beckett can return and catch him. Wandering off also allows him to call O’Leary, who is flatteringly pleased to hear from him, even more pleased to hear about drinks, and positively ecstatic to hear about Castle and Esposito’s machinations to get Beckett and Lanie in the same place at the same time.

“So why’d you want me?” he rumbles cheerfully. The phone resonates.

“Because between you and me we can stop Beckett killing everyone? Esposito and Ryan can deal with Lanie, but Beckett can fight.”

O’Leary snickers evilly. Then he turns serious.  “Castle, I get that she needs friends, but are you sure about this?”

“No,” Castle says honestly. “But Lanie’s bugging her – and me, which is a pain, and Beckett’s not happy about the situation, and this way they can either have a big fight or they can kiss and make up.  Besides which, we’ll tell her first that Lanie wants to apologise.  And if it’s a fight, well, I’m sure the city can find another ME, and we’ll all just have to help Beckett hide the body.  ”

“It’s not as if Perlmutter’ll help find it, is it?” sniggers O’Leary. “Useless, he is.”

“Ryan told me about the six-six suspect who turned out to be five-five…” Castle trails in front of O’Leary. “Have you got more stories like that?”

“Sure I do. But you’ll have to wait till tonight.  Okay, where are we meeting?”

“Back at Esperanto? It was quite good, and Espo won’t want to go far from here.”

“Detective Esposito,” O’Leary says pontifically, “has no imagination.”

“Says the man who allegedly never leaves Molloys.”

“Oh, that’s just to wind up Beckett. I go lots of places, though they’re mostly Irish bars, but I let her think it’s only that one.  It’s near enough to her apartment that I didn’t worry about her getting home okay.”

“You what? You worried about her getting home?  Beckett? Beckett?”

“My mom would kill me if I didn’t mind my manners,” the mountain rumbles embarrassedly, and then perks up. “Don’t tell me you don’t worry ‘bout her too.”

Castle is reasonably glad he’s on the phone. He knows he’s blushing.  Of course he worries.  But he’s entitled to worry.  Beckett is his girlfriend – and O’Leary’s long ago partner in mischief.  O’Leary was entitled to worry then.  He simply doesn’t need to worry now.  Castle will do that.

“So anyway,” he says quickly, “Esperanto, tonight, soon as you finish your shift? Will that be six, six thirty again?”

“Yeah. See you later.  Mine’s a Mexicali, if you’re there first.”

“Okay. Bye.”

So that’s one side of the game sorted. He tips Espo the wink in another moment when Ryan’s missing, and returns to his chair at Beckett’s desk.

“I got O’Leary,” he says happily. “We’ll meet him at Esperanto at six or so.”

“If there’s no body.”

“Yeah, okay. Don’t jinx it.  I liked their food.  At least when you weren’t trying to steal my churros.”

“I didn’t steal any of them.”

“You thought about it.”

“I did not. I don’t steal.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I don’t. Name one thing I’ve stolen.”

“My heart, Beckett,” Castle says in a theatrical tone designed to be wholly irritating and insincere. Except he’s totally sincere, she just doesn’t quite know it yet.  Beckett makes a disgusted noise and returns to her paperwork.  Castle smirks, even more irritatingly, and decamps to a safe distance.

Esposito is setting up Ryan.

“So, we’re all going to Croxleys.” Ryan raises his brows.  “Castle said he wanted craft beer.  I’d go to Ace, but he nixed it.  Anyway, drinks on him.  They’re bringing that oversize pal of Beckett’s too.  You in?”

“Sure.”

“Beckett’s a bit down ‘bout Lanie, Castle said.” Esposito delivers the lie without a wince or flicker of an eyelid.  “Still, a night with us’ll sort that.”  He watches deviousness slide through Ryan’s eyes and away again.  “Now, what’cha got on that camera footage?”

Some time later, Esposito watches with considerable hidden satisfaction as Ryan wanders casually off with his phone, and returns shortly afterwards with a rather guilty air.

End of day, end of shift, and, Beckett thinks, time for a nice drink with the very comforting mass of Castle and the bulk of O’Leary. Castle barely waits for them to be out of the precinct before he’s wrapped an arm round her shoulders with a happy smile and tucked her in to his side.

“There,” he bounces. “Nice and cosy.”

Beckett wriggles into a more comfortable arrangement, thinks about snarking, and can’t find a snark to activate. “C’mon, then.  Let’s go get this drink.”

Tonight, she wants soda. Not beer.  She finds a table, Castle finds the drinks, and shortly O’Leary finds all of them.  Some gentle chit-chat, occupying quite a while during which Castle surreptitiously reads a text and keeps conversation flowing, over the inadequacies of ME Perlmutter later, O’Leary grins happily.  Beckett has totally missed Castle’s nod to him.

“Just as well we’ve got ME Parrish, isn’t it? You two’ve been friends for years.”

“Yeah. She’s a really good ME.”

“And your friend. I haven’t seen her in ages, outside the morgue.  It’d be good to see her again.”

“So give her a call. I’m sure she’d be happy to see you.”

“I’m sure she would. Everyone always is.  Anyways, I hear she wants to see you.  Heard you two had an argument, and I heard she wants to apologise.”

Beckett casts Castle a fulminating and completely comprehending glare. You tattle-tale, possibly with some other pungent adjectives interspersed, is written all over her face.

“She does,” Castle says.

“I don’t want to see her,” Beckett says flatly.

“Beckett, she wants to make it right.”

“I don’t care. When I needed a friend she wasn’t one.  I don’t need her making me feel shit.  She hasn’t bothered apologising for butting in the other night, either.”  For some strange reason Castle hears or insulting you in that statement, and presses just a little closer.

“Beckett,” O’Leary’s bass reverberates around the table. “Beckett, Lanie was your friend way back when, you told me.  She was there then.  Just like I was – before I was.  Ten years, Beckett.  Don’t write her off for one screw-up.  She’s tryin’ to do what she thought was right.  So it wasn’t right, but so what?  She meant well.  Now if she’s gonna apologise and try to square things off, don’t you go throwing it back at her, ‘kay?  You’re better than that.”

“She doesn’t get it,” Beckett says. “She made it pretty clear that she thought I was a complete fuck-up.  She even said so.  That’s not one screw-up, that’s a month’s worth of commentary.  According to her, everything I’ve done since Christmas is wrong and I should go see a shrink or she’ll get me committed.  That how your friends talk to you, O’Leary?  ‘Cause it’s not how my friends talk to me.  It’s her who doesn’t want to be friends, not me.  I tried.  She didn’t.”

Castle stays quiet. He wasn’t there ten years ago, and he can’t help now.  He’s in enough trouble already.  O’Leary, immovable massive object that he is, might just be able to pull off enough big-brotherness that he can coax, cozen or carry Beckett into seeing Lanie again.  He wouldn’t bet against the last, though he thinks that O’Leary had better make sure that Beckett’s Glock is somewhere else before he tries it.

“If I dumped every friend I’d had a fight with, I’d have none left. C’mon, Beckett.  I can see that you’re miserable.  You don’t really wanna be on the outs with her.”  If Castle had said that, he’d be searching for his testicles in the gutter.  “Give it a go.  Say you’re sorry.  I can see you wanna make up, so stop trying to pretend you don’t.  We’ll both come with you.  Moral support.”  O’Leary strikes a muscular pose.  “If she’s still nasty to you I’ll remove her.  Pick her up and carry her outside.  At least I know she won’t be punching me in the kidneys.”

“Low blow, O’Leary. What did you expect me to do?”

“Respect the badge, Beckett. Respect the badge.”

She laughs, though it’s horribly brittle. “Didn’t notice you respecting my badge.”

“Couldn’t see it. You never did tell me where you hid it.”

“No. I didn’t.”  Castle’s eyes are wide.  “I’m not telling you, either.”  He pulls on a dramatically disappointed expression.

“C’mon, Beckett. Time to kiss and make up.  It’s one meeting, less than an hour, an’ I promise if it don’t go well we’ll go.  We can leave Castle to deal with the fallout.”

“Hey!” Castle squawks. “That’s not fair.”

“Your plan. You take the rap if it fails.”

Castle mutters and grumps, all of it for effect and none of it sincere. It looks to him as if O’Leary’s worked some magic, and while he, Castle, may have all the words it’s O’Leary who’s kissed tonight’s Blarney Stone.  Maybe there’s some truth in the Irish lineage after all.

“Finish your soda, Beckett, and let’s go,” O’Leary says, and fixes her with a stare until she drinks up. Castle wonders if he could achieve that, and then realises, rather slowly, that in an odd way this is a non-sexual counterpart of his technique (that sounds too studied, too manipulative, but he can’t currently think of any better word) of simply applying assertive masculinity and finding that she falls into it.  He reckons that it wouldn’t work for a second if they were in work.  Any of them.

The thought nibbles at his neurons, though. In work, alpha-Beckett is absolutely, definitively, totally on top.  Once they get out, she isn’t, necessarily.  And either way, Beckett is either surrounded by men who are as tough as she, or on her own, more or less.  Something’s there, but he can’t quite catch it –

“You coming, Castle?” breaks into his thoughts. He scrambles after Beckett and the rolling hill that she’s reluctantly following.  Even in her heels, when he catches up and moves to one side of her, it looks a little like she’s under arrest.  He slides a hand into hers and is vastly reassured when she curls fingers round his, though her fingers are chill and her grip only a whisper away from limp.  He curls his own fingers more tightly so that she doesn’t slip away.

“You ready for a beer, Espo?”

“Hell, yeah. All this paperwork makes my eyes bleed.  Let’s get outta here.”

Shortly, they’re sitting in Croxleys with some beer. Espo watches Ryan looking around for Castle and Beckett and evilly wonders when he’s going to tell him what’s going on.  Not just yet, he decides.  He’ll wait till Lanie shows up.  He’s got some words for Ryan and Lanie.  And… here she is.

“Hey, Lanie,” Ryan says, not really managing to make it sound as if he wasn’t expecting her.

“Yo, Lanie,” Espo says. “What a surprise.”  He doesn’t trouble to conceal his complete lack of surprise. Ryan flushes.  Lanie doesn’t.

“Least Ryan here still lets me know what’s going on. Seeing as the rest of you shut me out.”

“Wind your neck in, Lanie. What’d you expect, yellin’ at Beckett like that?  She’s not one of your rookie interns who’s screwing up.”  Esposito fixes Lanie with a hard stare.  “Thought you were her friend?”

“I am,” Lanie says, combatively. Ryan shifts a little away from the looming fight.  “You haven’t done anything to help her.”

Ryan moves a lot further away.

“I’ve done more than you have. All you did was yell.  Least I know how to treat my friends.”

“You didn’t do anything. Bet you just let her get away with saying nothing.”

“Worked better than your yellin’. All you got was your ass handed to you an’ now she won’t talk to you ‘cause you couldn’t keep your tongue between your teeth.  Way to go, best friend.  You wanna sort your shit out.  You been yellin’ at Beckett, an’ you been yellin’ at Castle ‘cause he’s there for her an’ you ain’t.  Jealousy ain’t attractive, Lanie.”

“I wouldn’t want Writer-Boy if you paid me in gold,” Lanie snaps. “He’s not my type.  I’ve known Kate for years and I know what’s wrong with her a lot better than some smart-ass blow-in with a big mouth and a cute ass.”

“Don’t look like you do to me,” Esposito says bluntly. Ryan is nearly at the other end of the bar by now.  “Looks to me like he’s got Beckett down cold.  It’s you who’s messing up here.  So stop yellin’ at me an’ talking shit about Castle, ‘cause you’re only doin’ it because you know you screwed up.  Why’d you come here tonight?”

“Because Ryan told me you’d all be here. Kate’s been avoiding me and she can’t run away like she has been.  I wanna talk to her.”  Light dawns.  “She’s not here, is she?”  Ryan groans, as light dawns on him too. 

“Nah. I knew Ryan would spill to you, an’ you’d show up. Di’n’t think it would be so’s you could do some more yellin’, though.  Thought you wanted to patch things up, but it don’t sound like it to me, so I ain’t gonna put money on it bein’ all happy when Castle does bring Beckett round here.  If he does, ‘cause she prob’ly don’t wanna see you, an’ he prob’ly can’t make her come.   Fact, I prob’ly oughta call him and tell them not to bother, it ain’t gonna work.”

Lanie opens and closes her mouth a few times, without anything coherent emerging. Esposito continues his cool stare at her.

“Don’t do that,” she eventually manages.

“You gonna keep your cool?” He taps out a text.  “I’m tellin’ Castle to hold off.”

“Who died and made you king? You don’t have the right to do that.”

“Yeah, I do. Me ‘n’ Castle thought this up to try an’ fix you two, but we ain’t doin’ that if all you’re gonna do is bitch and start a fight.”

“I didn’t start this. Kate did.  She’s the one shut me out.”

“An’ you’re the one getting’ in her face about it as often as you can. I don’t care which of you started it.  This ain’t kindergarten, though the way you’re both behavin’ it might as well be.  But if you want this fixed, you gotta change the attitude.  Beatin’ up on her ain’t gonna work.  Telling her she’s screwin’ up ain’t gonna work.  An’ tryin’ to get between her an’ Castle really ain’t gonna work, because you couldn’t get a piece of paper between them right now.”  He pauses.  “You oughta be grateful for that, if you’re really her friend.  He’s the only thing between Beckett an’ a medical suspension.”

“What? Why didn’t someone tell me?”

“Because you were so busy yelling you weren’t listening,” Ryan says quietly. “Beckett got sent home an hour after you were pitching a fit over her desk and Montgomery ordered you out.  I thought you and Beckett ought to be patched up, so I called you ‘bout tonight, but right now I’m thinking that might have been a mistake.”  Lanie looks ill.  “She was out for two days.  She’s not been really right since ‘cept when we’ve had a new body.  An’ all you’ve done is shouted at all of us and left nasty voicemails when we don’t answer.  If you’ve been doing that with Beckett too” – Lanie colours up – “So you have?  You dumbass – then I don’t think there’s much reason to patch you two up.”

Esposito nods. It’s always good to watch Ryan laying down the law.  Doesn’t happen often – Esposito can’t play good cop, his face doesn’t bend that way – but when Ryan decides where the bright side of the line lies, he’s as good as anyone at standing his ground.  He lets Ryan take point for a while and sees that Castle’s sent him a reply.  Let me know if you get to a good place. We’re good here for a long time yet.

“She needs fixed,” Lanie says with a fair amount of defiance. “She needs fixed and you weren’t sorting that out.”

“Not up to us to sort Beckett. She’s grown up, she knows what she needs to do.  Pushing her never works, an’ trying to force her to do what you think she needs to do was never going to work either.”  Ryan looks very straight at Lanie.  “Weaselling round trying to get all of us to tattle on her wasn’t your best plan.  Trying it on Castle was downright dumb.  No-one’s going to roll on her.”

Esposito manages to keep a straight face. He strongly suspects that Castle and Beckett have been spending quite a lot of time rolling.  It’s in their eyes.  Sniggering will not improve this clusterfuck, though.  Aren’t doctors supposed to have a bedside manner?  Lanie doesn’t.

“She still needs fixed, and she’s not doing it. She’s running round with Writer-Boy rather than sorting herself out.”

“Castle,” Ryan says with some emphasis, “has been keeping Beckett grounded.  Unlike you.”

Where did Ryan get the shrink-speak from? Night school?

“So wind your neck in, Lanie, because we’re not watching you try’n bully Beckett any more. Either sort your shit out an’ apologise, or go home.  Don’t really care which.”

Espo nods firmly. “Shit or get off the pot, Lanie.  Make up or don’t, but stop messin’ with us.”

“I have to apologise and Kate just sits there?” Lanie doesn’t sound co-operative.

“Naw. She’s gotta do her share.  But that ain’t your problem or mine,” Espo returns to the conversation.  “If she’s gonna try, she’ll turn up.  If she ain’t, she won’t.  Guess we’ll all find out.”

“Okay,” Lanie says. She doesn’t sound exactly full of sweetness and light, but it’s agreement.

Espo taps out a text to Castle. Lanie’ll play nice. Probably.