15. Someone who'll take care of me

“I’m sorry I interrupted your meeting, Beckett.”

“That’s okay.” She doesn’t say anything more.  Specifically, she doesn’t explain what the meeting was about.  Castle clamps down on the words cramming his throat and just manages not to ask.  Beckett looks wanly at him.  Clearly she’s not entirely with it.

“Did you want anything more, Castle? Because I really just want to go back to sleep.  Can everything else wait till tomorrow?”

“Sure.” He has a thought.  “I know.  Come round for dinner tomorrow.  I wanna talk to you without being interrupted every five minutes.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, Castle.”

“So?”

“So I can’t come round. I always have dinner with my Dad on Sunday evening if I’m not working.”  She does.  It’s part of the way she supports him.  It’s also very convenient, however.  “How about I meet you somewhere for coffee instead?  There’s sure to be somewhere halfway.”

“Why not come round for coffee instead?”

There’s a sudden tension in the air, and as suddenly it’s gone. Beckett shakes her head firmly and then winces.  “Ow,” she says, pauses and regroups.  “Your loft is as full of interruptions as the precinct, it just has fewer corpses.  Actual corpses, that is.  I’m sure it’s got lots of fictional ones.”  She breathes in, out, slowly, as if she’s trying to dull more pain.  “Let’s go somewhere we won’t be interrupted.”

This sounds like a very good idea. The last thing Castle wants or needs is his daughter or mother either listening in (if he and Beckett are in his office) or joining in (if they’re in his family room)  It’s just that he is also sure that there’s an underlying meaning to it that he’s not understanding.

“Okay. Let’s go to Ferrara’s.”  Beckett looks at him.  “It’s on Grand Street.”  Intelligent life is no longer apparent in her face.  “I’ll write it down for you.”  He’d wanted answers, but he’s obviously not going to get anything more coherent than a mutter now.  She’s now pale and wan again.  He scribbles the address on a handy notepad he’s found on her desk, adds a time, writes another copy so he himself doesn’t forget (which would be fatal), looks at Beckett, who is drooped on her couch and whose eyes are trying to shut, and kisses her briefly on the top of her head without causing any painful movement at all.

“Till tomorrow, Beckett,” and he’s gone.

Beckett takes herself very cautiously back to bed to avoid moving her head in any half-way sudden manner at all, and is shortly out cold again. She doesn’t awaken until after nine the next morning, and still feels a little fragile as a result of the doozy of a headache from yesterday.  A shower, some breakfast, and a coffee help, though she’s still not quite at her best when she leaves to make her way to Ferrara’s.   Still, if Castle’s chosen it it’ll have good – or excellent – coffee – actually, she knows it does.  Her brain is really slow, this morning: she’s been there, and it’s great coffee – which will improve matters, and as soon as her stomach realises she’s eaten the shaky feeling will depart.  Or she can have more food.  There are always nice things to eat in Ferrara’s.  The thought of lemon cannoli, or sfogliatella, cheers her up immensely.  The realisation that she can provide Castle with an explanation – which will not involve a single lie, but will keep him away from her father’s …er… issues – which will keep him happy and stop him asking questions, is even better.

She gets there first, which is moderately surprising, and is halfway through the first of two cannoli and two-thirds down the excellent coffee before Castle shows up.

“Sorry,” he says. “Alexis needed to talk.”  Not something Beckett will challenge, but also not something she really wants to think about.  She doesn’t like the reminder that her father isn’t there when she wants to talk.

“No problem. Are you going to get some coffee?”  She grins, and drains her cup, offering it to him.  “C’n I have some more, please?”

“Sure, Oliver.” It takes her a second to catch on, and smile.

“No gruel, thanks. I’ve plenty to eat here.”  Castle looks at the remains of the cannoli, stretches towards them…

“Ow!” Beckett’s smacked his fingers.

“Paws off my breakfast, Castle. I’ll buy you your own, if you want some, but you’re not having mine.”

“Oh, Beckett. Of course I want some.”  He leers.  She removes the leer by passing over a bill, and Castle retires, defeated, returning with two large cups of coffee and a cannolo of his own.  His momentary absence in search of caffeine and sugar-laden breakfast has given Beckett the instant she needed to organise her thoughts.  She decides to begin before Castle can direct the conversation in ways she doesn’t want.

“About Mrs Berowitz,” she starts.

“Mmmm?” Castle hums hopefully.

“She wanted to talk about her husband. See if I knew anywhere that might help.”  The question is obvious on Castle’s face.  “I told you that you see a lot of – that – when you’re a beat cop.  She was hoping for something more than AA.”

Castle winces. It really hadn’t been about the case, had it?  He’d interrupted a really difficult conversation, and no wonder Beckett had been mad at him.  “I’m sorry.  Could you help her?”

“Not really. AA’s the best bet for her husband, unless they can afford rehab.  A lot of people go to Al-Anon for support.”  She doesn’t mention anything else that she’d tried.  She doesn’t want this to become personalised.  Her father is not a spectator sport.

Castle is, for once, quite satisfied with Beckett’s explanation. Coffee passes off pleasantly, the short distance in the same direction before Beckett peels off to her own devices is spent comfortably discussing nothing in particular, and Castle reaches home nicely contented.

Right up till the moment he remembers what he’d inadvertently overheard when he crashed the meeting. It’ll bring you down too.  That had sounded like rather more than beat cop experience.  Then again, he’s seen Beckett’s ability to empathise with her witnesses and the families of the victim.  He’s sure she hadn’t been lying in the coffee bar, so it must simply have been that.  He forgets it, almost instantly.

It takes him a fortnight to realise she hasn’t been to his loft once since before Christmas. Not only that, but he hasn’t had a single glimpse of soft Kat since…well.  Since before Christmas, too, as the night she had a headache really doesn’t count.  There’s always been some reason for her not to come, but now that he thinks about it, it looks like a deliberate pattern of avoidance.   It’s always on her terms, on her territory, and because he hadn’t noticed it he’s gone along with it.  It’s easy, and her apartment is always private – but he wants her to come to his home and be part of his life.

Oh. He doesn’t feel like he’s part of her life, never mind her being part of his.  Spending time with her  - no, that’s not true either.  He doesn’t spend time with her.  They have sex.  Spectacularly good sex, but it’s always smooth, slick, sardonic Beckett and she never just wants to cuddle, or only play with the game she’d bought.  She doesn’t share, either.  They discuss books, or films, or current affairs.  She never mentions anything personal, and while she asks how Alexis is, or his mother, and seems interested in the answers, he somehow feels the constraint and tension rising every time, and cuts it short.

Okay then. He is going to invite Beckett over and this time he will not accept any excuses.  The next time he sees her outside the precinct it will be at his.  He feels much better, now he’s decided that.  He doesn’t want a friends-with-benefits arrangement, although he’s not even sure this qualifies as that – especially as his definition of friends involves some knowledge of each other’s lives – in fact, this is worryingly close to a booty call.  If this is going to go anywhere – and he has some very firm ideas about where it should be going, starting with discovering Kat again – then it needs to be a lot better balanced.

So when the day is done and the paperwork – it’s been paperwork for two full days, which is astonishingly boring – is put away, he begins.

“Time to go, Beckett.”

“Go where? I was going home.”

“Come home with me. I’ve got a really great recipe that I want to try out.”

“I…” He can see the search for an excuse rising in her eyes as they step into the elevator.  She still hasn’t thought of one when they step out of the precinct.

“No excuses. Come on.”  He tucks an arm into hers and ignores her splutter, marching them determinedly towards a free cab.  When they’re safely settled in, he gives his address to the driver and stops Beckett complaining by the simple tactic of pretending to settle her scarf more firmly round her face.

Beckett does not want to do this, but she doesn’t want to explain why, either. Surely she can manage one evening?  She’d managed not to have to go to Castle’s for a while now, and she’s past the worst period for dealing with – or propping up – her father, so maybe it’s time to have another go.  Even if it’s upsetting, she’s an adult and she can keep her unworthy, petty, jealous feelings out of this.  It’s hardly the collective Castles’ fault that she’s envious of their close family life, and she has got to get over this.  Better start now.

She slips a fine hand under Castle’s broad palm, and is ridiculously reassured when he closes fingers round it. Even through each of their gloves she can feel the warmth and strength of his grip.  She can do this.  But deep inside, unnoticed, she wishes that she needn’t do this.  She doesn’t consciously think it, but a tiny niggle says Castle always gets his own way, and he’s got his own way now.  Discomfort and irritation lurk unnoticed in the back of her brain, where she doesn’t spot them.

 The cab drops them at the base of Castle’s building, and she shivers.  Castle wraps her in, automatically – he’s developed that habit in the last couple of weeks, and it is also very reassuring.  It’s so unusual that someone takes care of her – the boys wouldn’t dare, and she’d never really noticed that Will did, seeing as they were both so busy with their respective jobs that it didn’t register – that she hasn’t quite worked out why she’s letting it happen.  She’s just enjoying it.

Castle has not wrapped Beckett in simply to keep her warm, but also to be able to read her reactions. She may have an excellent poker face, but she doesn’t have total body control, and small twitches and tells will inform him of far more than her expression.  Right now, it’s the lack of small tells that is giving rise to some concern.  She’s very slightly stiffening up, as if she’s bracing herself for something mildly unpleasant.  He’s seen her like this if she’s interrogating the nastier versions of low-life.  He saw her like this another time, or more than once, but he can’t quite chase down the memory.  It’ll come, if he ignores it.  But he doesn’t see why Beckett should be uncomfortable here, and it leaves him with a small subconscious niggle.

The niggle is by no means subconscious by the time dinner’s over. Beckett’s being nice and friendly and civil and interested in Alexis’s conversation – and it’s all entirely artificial and forced.  A further month of shadowing her has given him considerable confidence in his ability to read her, and he is absolutely positive that she is tense, tending to actively uncomfortable.  In a sudden blinding leap of instinct he realises that she is very, very uncomfortable with Alexis.  Hiding it well, but now that he looks he can see it.  He really doesn’t understand that.  How could anyone be uncomfortable with his amazing daughter?

Alexis doesn’t seem to have noticed anything, which is some consolation. And as Castle watches, he also realises that Beckett may be forced and artificial but she’s putting an awful lot of effort into hiding it from Alexis, which argues that she doesn’t dislike Alexis.  So something else is wrong.  Something about being here.  He doesn’t like that at all, and he’s not in the mood to hide it.  In fact, he’s downright annoyed by it.  He makes coffee, Alexis disappears, and he settles them down in his office.  At least there, there is an illusion of privacy.

“Did you enjoy dinner, Beckett?” There’s more of an edge on that than he’d meant.

“Sure,” she says, a little uncertainly. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Castle says sarcastically. “Maybe because you didn’t want to come here in the first place and you’ve been faking it all evening?”  There’s a flick of hurt over her face, gone almost too quickly for him to see it.  Her face turns into her interrogation shell.

“What are you talking about?” Big Bad Beckett is suddenly much in evidence. 

“You only came because I didn’t let you make excuses like you’ve been doing for weeks. You’re perfectly happy never to come here.  All you seem to want is a booty call in your apartment on your terms.  Well, that’s not what I want.  I’m not doing this any more.”  He pauses to take a breath, having emptied his lungs on pushing the words out.

Beckett’s entire face and body locks down cold. “Really,” she says frigidly.  “Funny, I would never have realised that you didn’t want it when it seemed you were having so much fun with me.  Guess I made a mistake.”  She stands up smoothly.  “See you around, Castle.”

She’s most of the way across the loft before he’s even worked out that she’s leaving. She’s gone before he’s realised what she said.  Well, he’s not going after her.  She didn’t let him finish what he was trying to say, so she can just stew.  Time enough to see her at the precinct when a body drops.  She’s had it all her own way so far and he’s rather had enough of that.  If all she wants are booty calls he’s not up for that.

No body drops, and he spends the day writing on and off, not particularly well, but it might be useful some other time or spark some inspiration, and in between surfing the net, the fan sites, and playing his latest shoot-‘em-up. He has a very pleasant dinner with Alexis, too.  Up until dessert.  He’s just getting the ice-cream out and teasing her about the plainness and limitation of her toppings when she opens up.

“Dad, why didn’t you go to the precinct today?”

“No body, pumpkin.”

“That doesn’t usually stop you,” Alexis says, regarding him with an unusually beady eye clearly borrowed from her grandmother.

“I was writing,” Castle points out. “I go to the precinct for inspiration, then I write.  Paperwork is very uninspiring.”  Alexis looks sufficiently sceptical for him to think that she has a future as a House of Representatives Committee chairman grilling investment bankers.  They’d cave in an instant.  He, however, is still her parent, and – he hopes – immune to it.

“Is it because you had an argument with Detective Beckett last night?”

“What?”

“You had an argument with her, didn’t you?”

“No,” Castle says, truthfully. They didn’t have an argument, because Beckett left before it got that far.  Typical Beckett, shutting down and shutting out without even trying to talk about anything.  She didn’t even let him talk, never mind talk herself.

Alexis raises an eyebrow in a gesture that looks horribly like she’s picked it up from Beckett. It doesn’t improve Castle’s mood, or view of Beckett’s behaviour, at all.

“Alexis, I don’t answer to you,” he says, slight sternness tinging his tones. It increases notably on his next thought and words.  “And eavesdropping on my conversations is something I thought you’d grown out of age seven.”  Alexis flushes.  “Don’t do it again.  I don’t listen in to your conversations and I won’t tolerate you listening in to mine.”  She droops apologetically.

“I couldn’t hear the words, anyway. Just the tone.  You were loud.”  Castle looks fixedly at her.  “Sorry, Dad.  I just…” she trails off.   Castle hugs her forgivingly.

“Just what, pumpkin?”

“I-like-Detective-Beckett,” she rushes out. Castle stares at the top of her head in amazement.

“Really?” Ooops.  That wasn’t a good thing to say.

“What do you mean ‘really’, Dad? She talks to me as if I’m an adult.  She’s got a real job and a real life.”  It’s just as well Alexis can’t see Castle’s face.  Every word Alexis is saying shows that her view of Beckett is so different from what Castle currently thinks that he can’t believe it.  “She’s totally different from Mom and Gina.”

“Oh,” Castle says rather confusedly. “Okay.  I’m sure Beckett will talk to you if you want it.  So long as you’re not disturbing her when she’s working.”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Alexis is offended.  Castle looks hard at her.  “I won’t!”

“Okay.” Alexis finishes her ice-cream and then bounces off to her room, apparently perfectly pleased with life.  Castle makes himself a coffee and repairs to his study, contemplating with equal shares of irritation Beckett’s behaviour, the lack of solid, soundproof walls in his study, and his lack of inspiration so far this evening.  He’s rather rocked that Alexis is so keen on Beckett, when all he can see is Beckett’s complete discomfort at being anywhere near this loft.  Since it’s not Castle with whom she had a problem, it has to be Alexis.  She was only hiding it to be polite.

He doesn’t tie up Beckett’s discomfort in his loft with her strenuous previous efforts not to come here in any logical way for some further hours. In fact, it takes him till the next day to see that if she isn’t comfortable here, of course she’ll make sure that she doesn’t show up.  Cause and effect.

The next morning there still hasn’t been a body, and he’s still irritated, with a heavy coating of outright annoyed. He turns his irritation into focus on his chapter and begins to write.  For quite a long time, it works.  Unfortunately, his stomach tells him it’s lunchtime very forcefully, pulling him out of his imaginary world and returning him to reality.  Reality, in this case, being that there is no body, no excuse to go to the precinct, and therefore no excuse to pin Beckett to an interrogation room wall and shake some answers out her.  He isn’t going to go until there is an external reason.  If she wants to mend matters, she can put some effort in.  If she doesn’t, well, he’ll know she never meant it.  Pain bites at him, but he ignores it.

He goes back to writing, for the rest of the day, waiting for his phone to ring. It doesn’t.