142. Man in the middle

The first thing Beckett thinks about on Wednesday morning is Castle’s slightly discomforting, slightly distant thoughtfulness. It gives her the same feeling of marginal second-bestness as it had a week ago. She reminds herself forcibly that he’ll talk when he’s ready, and then reminds herself further that treating one’s partner as if they were a suspect or recalcitrant witness is dumb.

That established, her next thought is that she has to call her dad. This is also an unpleasant thought. She’s only doing it because she knows she has to try – really try, so that she can come to terms with whatever the outcome eventually is – and because she is not now and never will be a coward. Not calling would be chicken-hearted, and she can’t bear to see that in her mirror. She quietly disappears to the back stairs when the boys aren’t there – she’s sent them off to deal with some more street-walking witnesses, though she’s reserved the blonde they’d seen on the CCTV for herself – and dials.

“Katie? Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine, Dad. Um… Dad, would you like to go for brunch on Sunday morning?”

There is a shocked silence. “Really?”

“With Castle and me.”

“Yes. Yes. Where, when?”

“Essex,” Beckett says decisively, “at 11, soon as they open. 120 Essex Street. I’ll make a reservation.”

“Okay. Er… I’m really glad you called.”

“See you Friday, Dad.”

“Okay. Bye.”

Phew. Done. She’s aware that she cut the call rather short, but there’s only so much she can take at once, and she’s done the really hard bit. She strides back into the bullpen to find that Castle is not there but the blonde hooker is in Interrogation, smiles very nastily and summons Esposito. Intimidation and interrogation. Just what she needs to improve the day.

The hooker is reduced to a small smear of terrified babbling in a remarkably short time. Normally they’re as tough as rawhide, but this one’s a little younger and not quite as hardened, despite the ravaged appearance. She gives up the name of her companion, who is also her pimp. Ugh. Nasty, brutish and sordid. Beckett does not have any sympathy for the corpse at all, but she has to do her job.

The rest of the day is taken up with arresting the pimp, the girl as accessory (though she’ll try for a plea deal because Selbright had beaten her up) and the consequent paperwork. Castle, showing up later than usual and admitting to a lengthy gym session, does not help with one single solitary sheet of the paperwork, which occupies the rest of the day.

At the end of the day Castle’s increasing tension, which has expressed itself in fidgeting, turns into words.

“Beckett, we need to talk.”

She looks absolutely shocked. Oh. That was a stupid way to put that. “Not like that. Really not like that.” Her face relaxes somewhat.

“What about?”

“Not here. Let me,” he says theatrically, “treat you to the delights of a gourmet dinner” –

“Remy’s it is, then” –

“Yep. Let’s go.”

Even when they’re installed at Remy’s with fries, burgers, and drinks of choice all in front of them, it’s very noticeable that Castle is fidgety, unhappy, and notably reluctant to start talking. After not noticeably long, Beckett gets rather bored of that.

“Okay, Castle, spill. What’s up? You look like someone stole your candy bar.”

Castle still doesn’t answer for a moment. Beckett considers, and with only a moderate degree of reluctance rejects, interrogating him until he starts to talk.

“It’s Mother,” he finally emits. “Well, it’s Mother and it’s what you said last night about not being able to forgive your father and I really find that hard to handle and we need to talk about it before Friday and you’re seeing Lanie tomorrow and so we have to talk about it now and” –

“Stop. Slow down. Start with your mother.” Mother is easiest. The second comment has opened a pit in her gut. Castle and his family. Castle who famously has no father and is absolutely the best father he can be, great father, dutiful and loving son, oh Christ. She can see all this starting to fall apart exactly where she thought it would, months ago, regardless of him saying really not like that. She braces herself, and doesn’t speak. If she does, she’ll panic and it will all go wrong instantly. She’d – they’d – agreed they might make mistakes, but they’d try to mend them. So just listen, Kate, rather than taking it wrongly when it hasn’t even been said.

“Mother,” Castle says with considerable bitterness and venom, “is still plotting. You were right to leave when you did. They came back two hours early. Alexis was furious with her,” he says unexpectedly. “They never row, but Alexis was yelling so loud you could have heard it at Central Park. Anyway. Mother’s so convinced that if she only puts you and your dad in the loft with all of us it’ll all be fine straight away that she can’t get her head out her ass.”

Beckett goggles. She’s never heard Castle criticise his mother like that.

“She’s planning something now. I don’t know what it is but I know she’s machinating. If she could use a computer I’d worry, but she’s still trying to progress past the technicalities of an ATM. But she’s going to try something, no matter how much I tell her to butt out and leave it alone. It’s going to be disastrous,” he says heavily. “Either she’ll spring something on us – interrupt something and expect it all to be happy families and the Waltons” – Beckett makes a disbelieving noise, and stays otherwise quiet – “or she’ll try to give you advice. She thinks she can stand in for your mother.”

“She thinks what?” Beckett says, appalled and furious in one instant. “No way. No freaking way. If she tries that your mother or not she will regret it.   I don’t want another mother. I don’t want someone I barely know trying to interfere. Don’t we have enough problems with my daddy issues” – the edge on that cuts the air – “and the fact I can’t sit in your home with your family? I can’t stand Dr Burke but at least he knows what he’s doing.” She runs out of infuriated breath, and drops her head into her hands. “Why can’t we just find a deserted island somewhere?” arrives, rather muffled and with a disturbing note of angry misery.

“I wish we could,” Castle agrees. “I’m trying to rein my mother in.”

“I know.”

“But that’s only one thing.”

Beckett’s stock of courage starts to exit her mind by way of the hole in her stomach. That really doesn’t sound good.

“I know it’s not about me” – oh God – “and I don’t have the right to have an opinion, but I was…” please just get on with it, Castle “…really upset that you might not be able to forgive your father.” Here we go. I knew it. My fucking family issues, ruining everything. She doesn’t look up. “It took me ages to sort it out, last night and this morning.” Beckett can’t bear to hear this. “You know how much my family means to me.” Don’t I just. “Even if Mother is currently doing her best to annoy me.” I know this. Just get on with it. “And I wanted it all to work out” – You’re breaking up with me, aren’t you? Just hurry up. No point dragging it out – “so that you got the same. Happy ever after.” A tear puddles and runs down her nose. Since her head is still in her hands, Castle can’t see it. Some dignity left. “Dr Burke told me I shouldn’t hope for that, that it might be that the best outcome was a different interaction. But I really hoped it would all work out. And then you said you might not be able to forgive your father.” I knew it. My Dad ruins another chance. Some more tears drip. “And I’ve spent most of the night trying to work out why that bothers me. I wasn’t going to tell you about it, but every time we haven’t talked it’s all gone horribly wrong and I didn’t want that to happen because I really don’t want to mess this up” – wait, what? – “so I decided I had to tell you about it and Beckett have you actually heard a single word I’ve said in the last five minutes?”

Beckett finds that her hands are being detached from her face and her chin tipped up.

“Why are you crying? Don’t cry, Beckett. Stop it. You can’t cry in Remy’s. We’ll be banned. Sweetheart, stop crying.”

Castle sounds almost as panicked by the thought of being banned from Remy’s as by the relatively uncommon sight of Beckett crying in public.

“What’s wrong? Kate” – he puts his hands round her face and strokes her cheeks gently where the tears have run – “talk to me. What did I say?” Beckett sniffs, blows her nose, and doesn’t answer. She doesn’t exactly want to admit what she’d been thinking. “Okay, so as I was saying, I was thinking about it all night and I think it bothered me in case Alexis didn’t want to be a family any more but then I thought that it’s not that you don’t want to it’s that your father’s hurt you so often and so much that you just can’t stand up under it any more. Which is totally different from not wanting to. But it took ages to work it out and please will you stop sniffling and talk to me because I’m really worried about you now?”

“I thought…” Beckett stops, and blows her nose again. “You kept saying that you had wanted everything to work out.”

“Uh?”

“It sounded like you meant it wasn’t working out. Us. Me. All because of Dad. Again,” she adds bitterly, and buries her face in a napkin.

“No. We’re fine. Aren’t we?” Castle adds hastily.

“Mphm,” Beckett snuffles into the napkin, which is beginning to disintegrate in her twisting fingers. Castle removes it from her hands and puts a clean one into them. She snuffles a little further.

“C’mon. Stop crying. We’re fine.” Beckett presses her cheeks a little further into his hands. Fortunately this booth is somewhat screened from the general population of Remy’s, which as ever is quite likely to include a number of vaguely familiar cops. Any minute now – in fact right now, as she straightens up, dabs her eyes and recovers herself – Beckett will remember that.

“Fine?” she says, soggily.

“Yep. Just fine.” If they weren’t in public, he’d kiss her, assertively, and show her just how fine they are. “We’re fine. And now that you’ve stopped sniffing, can I finish talking to you?”

“Not here. Let’s get a doggy bag and go home to mine. I don’t wanna do this here.”

Twenty minutes later they’re gathering up plates and warming up the food in Beckett’s apartment.

“So why’d you want to be here?”

“You finish first. Then… we need to talk about how I feel.” Castle goes pale. “Not about you. I told you. That hasn’t changed.” He relaxes, and reaches for her, as if to reassure himself that she’s still there, still his. She slips a little closer. “Finish, Castle. Let’s get it all out there.”

“Okay. So it took me all night to work out that wanting to forgive your father might not be enough to do it. But that won’t be for lack of wanting or trying – I mean, you’ve even invited him to brunch. But it really scared me because what if Alexis ever felt like that? I’ve always thought that nothing could ever break that bond and then you said what if I can’t forgive him and Dr Burke sort of gave you permission not to feel bad about it if you couldn’t and I’m not sure I could ever get over it if Alexis ever couldn’t forgive me.”

“Except you’re not an alcoholic, are you?” Beckett says sharply. “That’s where this all began. Mom died and Dad drowned himself in a whiskey bottle. Sure you said you did some dumb things, but you didn’t end up like he did. You said that even when you and Gina weren’t working out you tried to shield Alexis. My dad never even tried.” She stops. “I get where you’re at. Maybe that’s where I need to start, because it’s all two ends of one thing.”

She takes a bite of burger, chases it with a handful of fries and a slug of milkshake; looks at her hands, looks at Castle.

“I don’t think I told you why I can’t face seeing you and your family in the loft.” Castle shakes his head. He doesn’t remember her ever setting it out, though he’d guessed most of it. “Even the first time, before we went Christmas shopping. Just seeing you with Alexis. It was how Mom and Dad used to be with me. How Dad was. Your Christmas decorations. We had those. Two little wooden trees that they’d made: one each. Some that I’d made in grade school. I don’t know what happened to them. I guess they got lost, or thrown away, or spoilt.” Her voice falters. “But yours were all still there: proudly on the tree, like they mattered to you. Ours didn’t matter to Dad. Not once the whiskey took over.”

Castle slides closer to her on the couch and wraps a consolatory arm around her shoulders.

“You were so proud of Alexis and so interested and everything that Dad stopped being. I couldn’t watch it. I still don’t know if I can. She matters to you. I didn’t matter to Dad. Only Mom did.” She stops, breathing shallowly. “Everything I used to have and didn’t. Don’t. I was jealous.” She tugs herself away. “I am jealous,” she says. Condemnation shadows her tone. “Dad took all that away from me and every time I saw you and your daughter I was reminded of it. Even when we’re out at brunch now I’m reminded. But it wasn’t your fault or Alexis’s fault or anyone’s fault but mine. So I don’t want to come, because it’s not your fault and my issues aren’t your family’s problem.”

She stands up, moves to the table next to the window and picks up her little bird, cradling it, staring out, back to him. Her shoulders are tight and hunched, and Castle is quite sure she’s trying not to cry. No wonder she wanted to be out of Remy’s. He prowls up behind her and stands, arms crossed around her from behind.

“It’s okay. Stand down. I’ve got you.” She’s rigid and unhappy. “I’d worked it out, a long time ago. I’m still here. I’m glad you told me, but it doesn’t change anything. We’re past that. You need to work it out, but it doesn’t affect us.”

She turns in his grip and buries her face in his shoulder, shoulders convulsing. “How can you find it so easy to forgive?” she sobs. “I can’t. You seem to be able to get past everything: excuse it or forgive it or understand it and I can’t be sure I can forgive my own father but you can deal with everything.” Her words dissolve in her pain.

“Except I’m not an alcoholic, am I?” Castle parrots her words from earlier, in the same sharp tone. She tenses. “That’s the whole point here. It’s not the same. I’m not trying to forgive the almost unforgivable. I’m not putting Alexis through the hell you went through.”

“Dr Burke said it – he was right again,” she adds acidly, “that I wasn’t seeing the right pattern. I wasn’t looking at it through the lens of an alcoholic.”

“Right. And it’s the same now. I’m not seeing it that way. So I can forgive, because I’m not in your shoes, and I shouldn’t worry about Alexis, because she isn’t in your shoes either and I am not your father.” He takes a breath, and holds her more tightly. It feels like he’s holding her up: as if she’d slump like his sandcastle when the water hit it if he didn’t. Crunch time. “You don’t need my approval for any decision you make. No matter what we are to each other, in the end it’s up to you. You want to forgive, and that’s enough for me. Anything else is a bonus. Sure I wanted the happy ending – because a happy ending would be what you want. But it might not happen. Dr Burke – he was right yet again,” Castle inserts as acidly as Beckett had, “said that I shouldn’t hope for the happy ending, but the best we could get in the circumstances. Sounds like he’s said something that means much the same to you.”

He walks them both back over to the couch and sits them down in front of their neglected dinners. Neither of them take so much as a fry or sip of their drinks. Beckett is still crying quietly and unstoppably. Castle sniffs and blinks hard, and tucks her head into his shoulder so that he can lean into her hair and try to control himself.

“You’re enough for me, Kate. Whatever happens, we’ll work it out. You’ll make it to the loft, but it doesn’t matter how long it takes. We’ve got all the time in the world.” He pauses, and nuzzles into her dark hair. “Stop crying, sweetheart. It’ll all be okay.”

Beckett tries to pull her soggy self together, and succeeds in limiting her misery to damp sniffs and damp Kleenex. She’s still cosseted close against Castle’s chest, but she curls her arms around him in an effort to give back some of the strength and comfort he’s providing to her. They stay like that for some time, long after their dinner is cold and congealing, simply clinging to each other against the flood of catharsis and truth; the exhaustion of emotion. No words are spoken. Truth is out there, and it takes time to digest, even where it is welcomed and necessary. Still, Castle had said it. They have all the time they need. Unspoken but implicit: he’ll wait, and not push, and let her take the time she needs to mend this, however long that may be. She hugs him harder, and presses her face into his neck.

“I wish I could come back with you,” she murmurs.

“I wish I could stay here with you,” Castle rumbles back.

She brings her hands up round his face, feeling the slight roughness of end-of-day stubble, and pulls his head down to kiss him, softly at first, then much harder as he gives back in kind. Finally she rises, followed by Castle, to lead him not to her bedroom but the door. Otherwise she’ll never be able to let go of him. It’s hard enough as it is, and she’s perilously close to clinging before she drops her hands away from him and allows him to leave.

But again – they’ve both been upset, though not exactly with each other, they’ve both been angry, though again not exactly with each other, and they’re still standing, coruscating honesty notwithstanding, together.

Beckett draws herself a scaldingly soothing bath, and descends into its comfort to lessen her lack of comforting Castle.

Castle wrenches himself out of Beckett’s building and into a cab home with considerable regret for the leaving and none at all for the truth they’ve told each other. He’d meant it: however long it should take her, he will wait it out. She’s still working for it – for them; she’s still trying to make this all right, to make it all work. He descends into the chilly comfort of his wide bed, which doesn’t really lessen the lack of warming Beckett.