Damn you, O Muse, for keeping my brain occupied with plotlines instead of the work piling up on my desk.
For those of you that needed a higher fluff quotient after my last story...enjoy. Plenty of fuzziness to come. Also, some shedding. But I digress.
It was snowing in the city. For a place with an average snowfall of just over a foot, it seemed to snow a lot. The winter had been long and cold, and while it was technically spring, if you were out in the streets of Manhattan in anything less than your finest winter coat and a thick pair of gloves, you would live to regret the moment you decided to leave your apartment.
Much like the southern states, New York City had a bad tendency of shutting down if it started snowing. It's a little-known fact they forget to put in the movies and the TV shows and the tourist brochures. The city could handle a little snow, as could any U.S. city north of Austin and Orlando, but the second white stuff started accumulating on the ground, traffic ground to a teeth-grinding, hair-wrenching halt.
The streets were covered by several inches of white stuff. The city that never sleeps was, for the most part, at least still.
A blanket of snow also softened the sounds of the rambunctious, loud city. Never would you hear Manhattan so quiet as while it was snowing.
But snow only dampened gunshots. It couldn't muffle them completely.
A man in a hoodie and faded jeans half-ran, half-slid down a narrow, trash-filled alley. In his left hand was a gun, in his right a duffle bag. He slid to a stop in front of a rickety fire escape, hopped onto a dumpster, and leapt onto the railing leading up to the roof of a seven-story brick apartment building.
Not far behind him was a woman dressed in a smart black wool pea coat and a red scarf, a gun in her right hand and a walkie-talkie in her left. She followed his trail in the snow, shouting directions into the handset, until she slid to a barely-controlled halt in front of the fire escape as her quarry continued his speedy ascent. The man was already on the sixth story, climbing the last ladder to the roof.
She sighed. There was no way she'd catch him.
But cold weather equalizes things that ought not to be equal.
His gloveless hands had a hard time gripping the ladder rungs, and halfway up the last story his numb and frozen grip slipped. Instinctively, he lurched forward with his other hand to stop his fall. In the process, all his precious cargo was released to the whims of gravity.
The man let out a loud curse as his gun and bag fell back to the alley below, landing at the woman's feet. She looked back up at him as he paused to look down at is lost prize. Finally, he cursed again and continued climbing the rest of the way to the roof.
She looked after him, as if considering whether or not to continue her pursuit. Finally, she decided the bag was more important, and the gun would have his fingerprints. She'd let the proper precinct handle tracking down the thief. With the danger passed, she finally lowered her gun.
Her lunch hour was over, anyway.
She and her partner had been at lunch a few blocks away when the man with the duffel bag had robbed the convenience store next door. The two had watched the thief run away carrying the bag and gun, and she was on her feet and out the door before the distraught shop owner crossed in front of the bistro window.
She was, after all, a cop.
"Beckett!" Her lunch companion finally caught up to her. He wasn't out of shape, but the thief had been running so fast that even she had a hard time keeping up. As her partner wasn't technically a cop, she hadn't expected him to actually keep up.
Kate Beckett lifted the thief's lost bag. "Gravity's a bitch," she said. "What took you so long, Castle?"
Richard Castle looked at her with a disapproving scowl, but his only answer was a long series of puffs and wheezes.
The alley was narrow, crowded with foul-smelling trash cans and heaps of accumulated litter, all dusted with several inches of fine white powder. The harsh, frozen wind whipped through, stirring up snowflakes and the acrid stench of frozen rot.
She heard a rustle next to the dumpster, in a pile of papers. In an instant, Beckett had her gun back up. Castle took a position behind her as she inched forward.
"NYPD. Who's there?"
There was no response. Carefully, Beckett stepped closer to the pile, finally getting close enough to nudge the trash heap with the toe of her boot.
She got a response that time: a tiny whimper.
The two partners looked at each other before digging through the stack of junk. When they finally reached the source of the sound, Kate gasped.
The whimper had come from a tiny puppy, no more than six weeks old. It was huddled up, desperate for warmth. Its little body was skinny, and she could see the dog's ribs through her patchy black and tan fur.
Exposed, cold, the pup just shivered and whimpered.
"Oh…"
She froze for a moment, her heart melting at the sight of the helpless animal. The pup didn't try to get up, instead just looking up at the new, very large humans that had removed its source of warmth with large black eyes.
Overcome with a mix of guilt and compassion, Beckett leaned over and scooped the dog into her warm arms. When, after a few moments, the shivering hadn't ceased, she loosened her red scarf with her free hand and wrapped it around her tiny charge.
The shivering continued, but its tail started to wag.
She looked again at the roof: her thief was long gone. She sighed and picked up the bag, then turned to begin the walk back to the store.
"What are we going to do with it?"
"I'll take it to Animal Control."
Her human companion raised an eyebrow at her. "Really? You're going to let them just put that cutie down?"
"Castle, don't be such a drama queen," she said, rolling her eyes as she spoke. "They'll send her to a shelter."
"Uh huh," he replied, a definite hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"Would you like the dog?"
"Er, no," Castle replied.
"I didn't think so. Shelter, it is."
They weren't halfway back to the shop and restaurant before the shopkeeper had come back. In somewhat broken English, he began to express his thanks at the two for having recovered the money the thief had made off with. The bundle in Beckett's arm moved as the grateful man spoke.
"Oh! You have dog! I get food."
The man rushed back into his shop, appearing again a few moments later with a small bag of Puppy Chow.
"Oh…no. No, I'm a cop. This is my job. I don't need you to give me anything."
"Not for you! For the dog! Please…my thanks. To the dog!"
Some uniforms finally arrived on scene. She took the dog food off his hands. "Fine. I'll take it to the pound with the dog."
She and Castle settled their lunch bill as the uniforms from the 22nd precinct handled their beat. Paid up and statement-free five minutes later, the pair began walking back to Beckett's police interceptor.
"So, boy or girl."
"What?"
Castle nodded at the dog. "Boy or girl."
"Oh." She flipped the dog over briefly. "Girl."
"Aww. She needs a name. Snowy? Naw, she's not white."
"Don't name the dog, Castle."
"Stinky! I mean, she does need a bath, and you found her in a pile of trash."
Sighing, she looked back down at the puppy. Her shivering had stopped, though her tail still wagged. She turned her black and tan face up to her savior and sniffed at the air, climbing slightly out of her comfortable cocoon to get closer.
"She is kinda cute, isn't she?"
Just as the words left her mouth, the dog started licking her cheek.
"I think she likes you, Kate!"
She could feel the dog's tail wag against her arm, and the warm puppy kisses might have melted her heart just a little more. She pulled away and looked into the dog's dark, shiny eyes.
"Well," she started, "the roads are just about shut down. I probably couldn't get her to a shelter or a vet today." She lifted the bag the grateful shopkeeper had handed her. "And I happen to have some puppy food."
"You should keep her, Beckett!"
"No." She shook her head. "I don't need a dog. I don't have time for a dog."
They climbed back into her cruiser. The small animal immediately curled up on the seat beside her and fell asleep.
"But…maybe she can stay the night at my place."
This is one of those stories that may never end. Keep watching this space.