593. Chapter 593

After Flowers for Your Grave

Episode 1.01

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: if, after all this time, anyone thinks I own Castle, I won't even bother correcting you. Rating: K Time: See above.

ME Lanie Parish came into the morgue to see her best friend sitting on a steel table, her legs dangling, swinging back and forth. "Hi, sweetie. I hear you caught the bad guy. Good work, and it must have been interesting."

Kate Beckett shrugged. "Just another cold blooded multiple murderer. Nothing special."

Lanie raised an eyebrow and smiled. "Nothing special? You had some special help on this one, remember?"

"Special help?" Kate rolled her eyes. "You mean a special pain in the ass, don't you?"

"Was it that bad?" Lanie asked. "He seemed nice, friendly, cooperative…"

"For a self-centered jerk." Kate cut her off.

"That bad, honey?"

"He treated me like I was some sort of a rookie. Talking about all of his experience with the criminal mind. Oh, and about all of his rich and powerful friends. He even tried to tell me about myself, like he'd know anything. Oh, and his books. Let's not forget to mention all his damned best sellers at every opportunity."

"The killer did copycat some of those murders when he killed all those people."

Kate shrugged. "The killer didn't copycat every freaking one of the murders in his books. We'd have been knee deep in corpses if he had. And then, to top it off, he told me we had the wrong guy, right in front of everyone. Like I was too stupid to figure that out myself."

"Kate, you did arrest the wrong guy at first. Remember?"

"Of course I remember. I'm not stupid, although that's apparently what Mr. Best Selling Author thinks of me. Poor stupid, Detective Kate Beckett who couldn't figure out that the murders were staged wrong. Oh, not totally wrong, but just wrong enough to make it look just a little like a frame. And that's all I needed. Just something that was a little bit wrong and I was on it. But he has to tell everyone that we have the wrong guy, meaning I have the wrong guy, of course." Kate took a deep breath. "He is just so damned arrogant and full of himself and…." Kate was too angry to say anything more. She just sat there and glared.

"But the important thing is that you caught the real murderer, isn't it?" Lanie asked quietly.

"Oh, sure. And he's probably talking to the Ledger right now explaining how he solved the murder in spite of the bumbling of Detective Beckett. Believe me, he loves to get his name and picture in the papers. I'll probably be the laughing stock of New York City by tomorrow. I'll be the butt of jokes on late night talk shows. I'll probably end up as some lame skit on Saturday Night Tonight. Detective Kate Incompetent, or something." Kate took another deep breath. "Dammit! I'm a cop, a homicide cop and a damned good one. I don't deserve to be treated this way."

Lanie walked over and took Kate's hand. "Sweetie, I'm not saying that he'll do anything of the kind, and I'm not saying that nobody will ever mention you on TV, but suppose your worst case scenario comes true? In a week it'll be old news. Someone will get caught in the wrong bed, or some Wall Street firm will go under big time, or some politician will be caught with his hand in the cookie jar, or down some young lady's dress and everyone will forget about Kate Beckett and some writer. You'll see."

Kate shook her head. "The cops will remember. You know how hard I work to get any respect here. I was the hot rookie and then the hot cop. Half the NYPD assumes I made detective because I was sleeping with someone. The rest think I made detective because I was sleeping with lots of someones. I just get so damned angry and I…" Kate bit her lip and managed to calm down. "I am not going to let him get to me. I'm not going to let them get to me. I'm where I am because I'm a damned good cop and no empty headed writer is going to change that."

Lanie squeezed her hand. "That's right. That's the Kate Beckett I know."

Kate shook her head. "Do you know that he even asked me out?"

"What did you say?"

Kate turned and glared at her friend. "What did I say? I said no, of course."

"Why? He's rich, you know. He can take you places that you'd never get to see on a cop's salary. Expensive restaurants, with those menus with no prices on them since if you have to ask, you can't afford it. And wine lists like nothing us mere mortals have ever had, sweetie. And if I recall correctly, he's not ugly, is he?"

Kate snorted in derision. "The only thing that clown would spend money on me for is to get me into bed and brag to all of his other writer buddies about how he screwed some pathetic, lonely cop. I could never do that to myself."

Lanie smiled softly at her friend. "Honey, he wouldn't be telling anyone you're a pathetic, lonely cop unless you told him. I don't know about pathetic, but I know you're lonely. You haven't dated anyone at all since that FBI agent. Would it have been that bad to have gone out with the guy, had a nice meal, a couple of drinks and then go home? Alone?"

"Lanie, I'm not that person. You know that. I want what my parents had. I don't want to be a one night stand. I want something meaningful and real. And I'm willing to wait and I'm not willing to compromise. So, yes, it would have been a bad thing to go out with him just to get a nice meal and a few drinks." Kate waved her hands. "Yes, I know, Manhattan is full of women who do exactly that. And if that's what they want, that's fine with me. But it isn't what I want and it isn't me."

"Fine, sweetie, don't go out with this one, but you should…"

Lanie was cut off when Kate's phone rang. She spoke briefly and hung up. "I've got to go. Another murder. An Alison Tisdale's been murdered. At least this time I won't have to deal with Steven J. Cannell."

Detective Kate Beckett hopped down from the table and walked confidently off, not knowing she was about to meet an entirely different writer.

Author's note: Okay, I'm at it again. As I said, I'm not at all sure I can write another eight seasons, or more, of Castle After…stories. But, they are fun. And didn't you ever wonder why Kate was so abrasive with Rick? Now we know.