57. Chapter 57

After A Chill Goes Through Her Veins an After Always Buy Retail

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Still not owning this. Rating K+ Time: In the beginning…

"I am not jealous of his ex-wife!" Kate Beckett muttered as she walked into her apartment. She sat down and thought, very hard. "No. I'm not jealous." She thought back over the last two cases. All right. Castle is annoying, egotistical and undisciplined. But there is more to him than that. He doesn't just sit around the bull pen soaking up the atmosphere and picking up cop slang like I thought he would. He does try to help. Sometimes he's a lot of help. Like with Melanie Cavanaugh. I had nothing. Sure, Sam did it and karma bit him in the ass. But it wasn't enough for me and oddly, it wasn't enough for Castle.

She thought back to her visit to his home. Playing laser tag with his daughter? He is a good father. He'd have to be since it's obvious he got no help from Meredith. It doesn't take an expert in body language to see that Alexis wanted no part of her mother. Kate thought about her own mother. Alexis and I have something in common. We both lost our mothers. In her case, her mother took herself away.

But that loft! I knew he had money, but nothing like that. I really did feel like Alfred seeing the Bat Cave for the first time. But Castle didn't act like a self-absorbed millionaire, did he? If I'd gone to a lot of detectives and told them I'd solved a murder, but I wasn't happy with what I had and would they please help me find the story, I'd have been kicked out on my ear. But not with Castle. He wanted the story, too.

Okay! I admit it. I wasn't at my best in the Cavanaugh's old apartment. Castle said we should pretend we were married. All he meant was that we should consider what happened from Melanie and Sam's point of view. He wasn't suggesting we should go into the bedroom and screw like a pair of demented rabbits. I should have been more professional. I should have asked him to pretend to be Melanie. That would have been fun. Oh, damn! That's not a very professional thought. But it would have been fun.

Kate stopped and thought. Fun? Okay, he is fun. Annoying and self-centered but…fun.

She shook her head to clear it. Fun is not what I'm thinking about. I'm concerned with murders. I'm a detective. Unlike that clown Sloan. Some detective he was. He hardly investigated a thing. Castle is a better detective than he'll ever be. Kate stopped, shocked by that realization. On the one hand we have a policeman with years of experience and training and on the other we have an egotistical playboy and Castle is the better detective of the two? That is an odd conclusion.

Okay, Castle may not be a trained professional, but he's smart. Smarter than I originally gave him credit for being and he's knowledgeable. He knew about Vodun and no else did. He was kind enough to call that Michelle up so she could tell us more about Vodun. He didn't have to do that. No, he does an awful lot of things he doesn't have to, doesn't he?

He went into a gunfight with me. Not intentionally, of course, but he has to know that if he keeps following me, something like that is bound to happen again. He didn't buy that silly protective vest just to try to look like a cop, not with "Writer" across the front. At some level he understands what he's getting into. And at some level he's prepared for it. He set up my shot at Baylor by shooting at him with a champagne cork. What kind of an idiot…? No, he's not an idiot. If we hadn't taken a chance, we'd both be dead. He had a chance and he took it. He thought it through and came up with a plan under fire. How many rookie cops could have done that well?

He's not that much of a professional, though. She thought back to their conversation after they'd interviewed Ben Davidson.

"He has a point, you know." Castle had said. "The police investigated at the time and found it was a mugging gone bad."

"They don't have the evidence we have, Castle."

"And the evidence we have is?"

"Ben Davidson went to see Mrs. Marsh about the freezer that she didn't order. We know that's how Sam Cavanaugh got her body out of the building."

"Sure, Ben Davidson was interested in what happened when his daughter disappeared. Can you put him at the scene of Sam's murder? After a year, can anyone place him anyplace? Do you think you could find anyone at this late date who could place Ben Davidson anywhere?"

"It's a long shot. But I have to try. I'm a cop, Castle, not a writer."

"He's gotten rid of the gun, you know. He's not stupid. He'd have dumped the gun after he killed Sam. If he didn't, he's certainly gotten rid of it after we talked to him the first time."

Beckett had gotten angry at him. "I know it's a long shot. But I gave to try, dammit! I have to try, Castle."

"Why, is that going to be justice?"

"You ask me for justice, I give you law." Kate said tiredly.

"Oliver Wendell Holmes." They both said at once. They looked at each other and smiled.

Castle nodded. "Okay, Ms. Justice Beckett, do what you have to do. I just don't think anything will come of it."

Kate agreed with him that they'd never build a case strong enough for the DA to file charges on, but she would try. She had to do that.

No, Castle a professional, but perhaps that wasn't so bad. The professionals who handled my mom's case were as bad as that buffoon Sloan. I wish I'd had Castle…No! Do not go there. Do not go back to your mom's case. You'll go in and never come back out.

I'm glad I told Castle about mom. He did tease me a little about Nikki's back story, but he understands now why I'm so driven. I'll never solve the case I want so badly to solve, so I try to bring closure to every other person who've suffered like I have. He seems to understand that.

Her mind went back to the two of them, standing there in the hallway after she, no, after they took down Baylor. I really thought for a second that he was going to suggest something…sexual. That would have ended everything right there. But when he leaned in and whispered in my ear to never call him Kitten again, I almost laughed out loud.

No, I'm not jealous of Meredith. I just don't like her at all. And I do like Castle. I just don't want him to have to put up with Meredith, that's all. But now that she's moving back to New York…

Castle sat reading Johanna Beckett's file. Beckett has a better poker face than I thought, but it's not perfect. The pain that she feels shows through every once and a while. When I first met her and saw her pain I felt I couldn't take her pain away. But maybe I can, just a bit. I know from Esposito that Beckett went over this file for years and found nothing, but maybe I'll get lucky. I'll have to get really lucky, I'm not anywhere as good a detective as Beckett us. But I have to try.