Confronting Betrayal

Frankenstein and Dracula have nothing on you
Jekyll and Hyde join the back of the queue
The female of the species is more deadlier than the male

Space, "Female of the Species"

Alexis Castle stepped off the elevator in the OCME building and into the sub-basement for the morgue. At her exit interview when she had ended her internship upon graduating from High School she had checked the box for recall if there was an emergency, so the pass on her lanyard was still valid and the security desk officer waved her through the metal detector and buzzed her in without incident. Charlie had always liked seeing her in a grandfatherly way. She thought it was sweet.

She'd come to ask Lanie about Kate. It had been one thing for the detective to be withdrawn and distant while her dad had been missing these past two months. She had long ago learned that this was how the older woman coped with heartbreak. They were all guilty of withdrawing into themselves to cope in one form or another, herself included.

She had only snapped at Kate once during the last two months and she'd felt awful about it ever since, because it had made Kate seem to withdraw even further into herself.

The problem was...Kate was still doing it. Even with her dad home, safe and relatively sound, Kate was still holding back. If she was going to make things right with Kate for hurting her and make things better for her dad, she had to find out what was wrong and there was only one person she knew of whom Kate might have confided in... Lanie Parish.

As Alexis rounded the corner into the morgue, nearly within sight of Lanie's office she heard voices... angry ones. Belonging to Javier Esposito and Kevin Ryan.

"How can Beckett just go back to Castle after what he pulled!?" Esposito said loudly.

"Yeah, this is like her relationship with Davidson all over again." Ryan echoed, similarly angry.

"Guys, we need to give Castle the benefit of the doubt here...at least for Kate's sake." Lanie replied, "Castle would have for..." But Esposito cut her off.

"He faked his own kidnapping...put Beckett through hell for weeks...just to get out of marrying her...so he could go camping!" Esposito roared.

Ryan had just opened his mouth to agree with his partner, when the last person either of them expected to see burst into the room.

"HOW DARE YOU!" Alexis shrieked at them both, her face a mask of unconcealed rage framed with red hair.

"How dare you think that my father would ever in a million years do something like that to Kate or to Grams and me! The last two months have twisted Grams heart into KNOTS! Every day I watched the worry and fear kill her a little more inside! Every goddamned day!"

"Or did you think we were in on it? Is that how little you think of my dad? Of grams? Of me? Not ten weeks ago the two of you were competing with each other to be his best man at the wedding!" He only chose me because he couldn't bear to choose between you because that is how much my dad RESPECTED the two of you!"

"Little Castle..wait..." Ryan choked out, but she slapped him in the face.

"SIX YEARS!" She roared on undeterred, "Six years he's followed you guys around...paid for your drinks...used his connections to help you...stood by you...trusted you with his life...called you friends if you even know the meaning of the word, but what happens when he really needs you? You turn on him! Can't drop him fast enough!"

Esposito opened his mouth to speak, but Alexis shouted him down too.

"Twice now...TWICE...my father has asked for the trust he's shown both of you after everything he's done for you guys...and BOTH TIMES this is how you've thanked him for it! By deserting him like rats!"

That cut both of them to the quick, especially Esposito. A rat was the worst thing you could ever call a cop. A rat was the lowest form of life. Alexis was succeeding at making them both feel like the filth that rats step in.

"You want to know something funny? My father still trusts you! Still believes in you! Even though from where I stand, neither of you deserve anyone's respect! You have definitely lost mine! I'm disgusted with and ashamed to know the both of you!"

With that, her rage expended, Alexis burst into tears and fled, the hallway echoing with the sound of her sobbing. A short distance away the women's restroom door could be heard slamming closed.

Lanie glared at the two thoroughly chastened detectives with such intensity it felt like the temperature had dropped ten degrees in the already chilly morgue.

"I hope you two knuckleheads are proud of yourselves." Lanie snapped at them both.

"But...all the evidence..." Esposito began.

"And if their positions were reversed and it had been Beckett, would you have believed this "evidence" or trusted her?"

"I..." Esposito started, but fell silent and slowly hung his head. Ryan did the same rubbing his face where Alexis had slapped him.

"That's what I thought." Lanie replied spitefully, "Get out of my sight...both of you or Imma smack you for traumatizing that poor girl even further than she has been. You two should be ashamed of yourselves. Especially you Javi."

Both men shuffled toward the door, their heads hung and shoulders slumped for having let Castle down... again.

"You two dimwits should probably start thinking of ways to make things up to Castle and Beckett while you're at it!" She shouted at their retreating backs.

A short time later

Alexis sat on the floor of the ladies room sobbing uncontrollably. She had slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her hands wrapped around her knees, the small amount of makeup she wore streaked down her face showing the tracks of her tears in stark relief against the porcelain skin of her cheeks. Wondering how anyone who really knew her father could possibly believe him capable of doing such a vile, disgusting thing.

Is this why Kate was still so distant?

Because some small part of her believes this?

Can no one else believe in dad like she did?

"Hey sweetie," Lanie soothed as she knelt on the floor beside her, "don't worry about those two numb-skulls, I think you set them straight."

"Is this why Kate is still so... distant... with dad...with us?" The girl pleaded.

"No! Sweetie...no!" Lanie soothed. "Kate never gave up on him, not once in the whole two months he was missing...even when the rest of us had our doubts."

"Then, why?" Alexis begged, a fresh round of tears streaming down her face, "Why doesn't she seem happy to have him back...like Grams and I are?"

"Don't you worry, baby, Kate will come around, you'll see. I think she's just still in shock is all. This is a lot to take in. Just give her some time, okay?"

"Okay." Alexis whispered, still sniffling as Lanie helped her to her feet and led her over to the sink to freshen up.

"Its been a slow week, I'll take an early lunch and make sure you get home okay." Lanie said as Alexis cleaned off the streaked and smudged makeup and reapplied it from the kit in her purse.

Once she was done they left arm in arm.

Meanwhile in Rysposito's Unit

After ten minutes of uneasy silence sitting in the car still parked in the OCME garage, Ryan finally found his voice.

"Little Castle's right you know...so is Lanie."

"Yeah, even if he could do this to Beckett, he'd never do it to his mom and kid." Esposito agreed.

"Guess that makes us a couple of prize chumps." Ryan stated dejectedly, "We fell for it...again. Hook, line and sinker. First Tyson's frame-job and now... this."

Both men sat in the car, their heads hung, feeling like the lowest forms of life to slither out of the muck.

"Gotta figure out a way to make this right, Javi." Ryan said, unable to look even his partner in the eye, "We broke the faith, not him. He deserved better from us."

"Yeah," Espo replied, "guess when Castle comes back to the precinct dinner will be on us...a healthy serving of crow."

**Author's note** I have no idea where this came from. I watched the première on my DVR when I got home, slept on it, went to work and this just kinda popped almost fully formed into my head. You guys know how much I like writing "angry Alexis on a rampage" well I think this time she'd have something to actually be angry about!