Cloudy With a Chance of Murder.
This is the first part that will stray from the canon story-line a little. But it won't change anything, it's just more of a little detour. We are picking things up the morning after Castle's TV interview where he says yes to a date with Kristina Coterra. This kind of runs along with the scene in the episode, then we verge off for the next part (coming ASAP, I promise!).
Part I: leaving the crime scene.
Part II: the phone call.
Part III: a visit to the morgue.
Part IV: the lunch break.
Part V: lunch part II.
Part VI: the perfect cover.
She was fuming.
And she had every right to do so!
Kristina Coterra had made a move, asked him out. The nerve. Not that she had done anything wrong, exactly. Castle was, for all intents and purposes, a single man in the eye of the public. Beckett had insisted on the whole 'pretend to be single' thing...
So, maybe she didn't have every right to be fuming.
But still, pretending to be single in public and going on a date - an actual date - with another person were two totally different things! One was protecting their relationship, the other was just flat out disrespecting it. And to think they were off to such a good start.
She had left the studio in a fit of anger, leaving Castle to find his own way home.
Maybe Kristina could give him a lift, she thought to herself as she drove away from the lot.
She didn't hear from him that night.
The next morning, she headed straight to the precinct. She'd had time to reassess the situation, to calm down. She wasn't seeing red anymore, wasn't consumed by anger. She was, however, hurt.
Insecure.
Maybe even a little jealous.
"You left," he accused without so much as a good morning.
She gave him a quick glance over her shoulder. "I had work to do," she lied.
"When I came back here last night they said you hadn't come back after we left together."
She felt a twinge of guilt in the pit of her stomach; she hadn't expected him to have headed back here to try and find her. And she knew - because she knew him - that he had probably wanted to head straight to her apartment afterward to see her, possibly even apologize to her, but he didn't. Because he knew her too. He knew she needed time to cool off.
She sighed and closed the filing drawer she had been digging through.
"Fine," she relented - but her pride wouldn't back down that quickly. "I went home."
"You're upset."
"Why would I be upset?" she asked as she pushed her way past him. "It's not like you're going out with some super hot TV personality or anything," she said bitterly. She stopped her journey to escape, turned on her heel and looked at him through narrowed eyes. "Oh, wait; yes you are."
"I'm doing it for us," he claimed.
A bold claim, really. Dating another woman - a woman known for crossing boundaries, for baring her body for the sake of entertainment - in order to protect the sanctity of what was theirs; what an insane notion. She had no words: no sarcastic quips, no arguments, no questions or queries... nothing. His idea of doing this for us had left her utterly speechless.
She turned, once again, and stormed away.
"Kate!" he called out after her, but she wouldn't stop.
She heard the heavy fall of his footsteps as he rushed to catch up. Halfway down the staircase, he was by her side.
"I'm telling you, it's the perfect cover," he insisted enthusiastically. "No one's gonna suspect us if they know I'm going out with Kristina."
As if to prove his point, Esposito approached from the hallway with a boyish grin on his face.
"Yo, Castle! Nice work with Coterra, bro."
Beckett couldn't contain the frustrated roll of her eyes as they bumped fists like teenaged boys in the locker room, bragging over their latest pursuits. And as soon as Espo was out of earshot, Castle looked at her with a smug grin.
"See? Perfect."
She hated to admit it, but he might have actually been onto something.
That didn't mean she had to like the idea.
"Yeah, it's perfect," she said without a single ounce of conviction in her voice. "So, how far do you plan on taking this date?" she dared to ask.
And she hated her voice for failing to hide how insecure she felt in this moment, hated her mind for even allowing such thoughts to consume her, hated Castle's apparent oblivion to it all.
"Well, I'm taking her out to a fancy dinner," he informed her oh-so-casually. "Some place romantic where everyone will see us; maybe even end up on Page Six. How great would that be?"
She forced a smile. "That'd be- that'd be really great."
And, finally, he realised. "You are okay with this, right?"
She bit her tongue, this wasn't the time.
But Castle had other plans. He grabbed her hand and hurried out of the bullpen, dragging Kate along behind him.
25 notes
·
View notes