155. In the middle of the night

Beckett wakes in the night, finding herself loosely attached to Castle, and rather surprisingly not overheated. She turns over, and regains his hand, limp in deep sleep.   It’s – odd – for his fingers not to be in motion, to close around hers and to fidget, or to stroke gently, or simply to lend her his strength. His hands are never still, except here in deep sleep and deeper night. She holds his hand, and takes comfort and strength from it, lying still and quiet in the darkness.

Here, the dark is not sad, but soothing, soft breathing and warmth beside her providing safety. Surrounded by him, refreshed by sleep, she can think clearly. The meltdown in the car is suddenly mystifying. It’s not about one route being blocked so she’s flailing round for anything else, it’s about progressing all the routes together. She needs to move everything forward, in little steps. And it is moving forward. She fought with her Dad and the world didn’t fall apart. She said no to him, and to Castle, and the world didn’t end. She can – if she needs to, though she really hopes that she does not need to – reduce Martha to a small pile of scrapped sequins – and the world still won’t implode.

So she had a momentary meltdown, a small shake. She’s allowed. It doesn’t mean it’s all falling apart. It just means she was tired, and more upset by her father than she had realised, and not quite ready to take fights with her father in her stride. Besides, she’d said that she didn’t need a substitute parent – she’s got one. Mm. Hmm. Normal disagreements and difficulties don’t mean that it’s all going horribly wrong. That just means that she should accept that sometimes she’ll be unreasonably upset over something small, that sometimes she’ll be angry, that sometimes it’ll all spill over.

But whatever she will be, Castle will be there, clearing her vision at home the way he does on a case. He’d very carefully made the point – how did he know? – that his family won’t look sidelong at her for her actions; and then that she should simply own her decisions and deeds, and move on. Others weren’t there, and weren’t her, and therefore don’t have the right to judge. As long as she is sure, under the excellently irritating Dr Burke’s guidance, that she had done what was right for her – it‘s nobody’s business but hers.

And if it’s nobody’s business but hers, then she can stand on that and push back against people pushing her faster, farther, than she wants to go.

She smiles into the darkness, takes a tighter grip on Castle’s hand, and slides back into peaceful sleep.

She wakes in the morning refreshed, calm, and, after a short diversion to the bathroom, curled happily into the immense mound of pillows on the one side and the firm bulk of Castle on the other. He’s nice and warm. She is not, as a consequence of her diversion. She plants her cold toes firmly on his nice warm legs. There is a sleepy rumble of complaint and a rearrangement so that she’s spooned in and her toes are no longer planted. That’s okay. They’re warm now. She wiggles slightly to be completely comfortable and closes her eyes again: safe, soothed, and securely held.

Some considerable time later, Castle wakes, slowly, savouring every last second of his slow rousing with Beckett right there, right where she should be, and peacefully asleep: totally comfortable in his bed and his arms. Today is already a really good day. Even if there were to be a hurricane next minute, this is a really good day. He takes a tiny break, returns to exactly the same position, luxuriates in the feeling and then settles back to think. He is a touch worried about Beckett’s misery last evening, and more worried about her defeatism. It’s not like her. He didn’t think that insecurity about being liked was a major part of the Beckett psyche either… oh. But… when she’d tried to drive him away, way back when, she’d done it by showing him the bits of her personality she’d thought no-one could like. He wonders, vaguely, if she’s done that before.

Anyway, it’s now a moot point, because she’s waking up. Her eyelashes flutter, there’s a slow, boneless stretch and rub against him; a curl into herself again which presses her bottom into him. He is instantly aroused.

“Mmm. Are you pleased to see me?”

“Oh, so much,” Castle murmurs, stroking a velvet voice down her veins. “Shall I show you?”

Beckett shifts to lie on her back, opens sultry eyes and reaches for him. “Mmm,” she hums. “Or I could show you?”

“Let’s show each other,” Castle decides, and descends on her opening lips. Her hands lock round his neck, and he settles into the receptive cradle of her hips as his own palms likewise cradle his face. Their movements are slow, and gentle, and mutually giving: afterwards they simply lie together, perfectly content.

Over a late breakfast, served, this late April day, outside, in a nook shielded from the wind and attracting bright sunshine, Beckett appears to Castle to be far happier than yesterday. She’s looking out over the ocean, eyes far away, far beyond the horizon. He slips fingers over her still hand, but doesn’t disturb her by speaking. He idly wonders what might be going on at home.

“Grams, stop it,” Alexis says, for the fifteenth time. “Mr Beckett isn’t coming for life coaching. Stop second-guessing what he’s here for. He wanted to see us.”

“Sweetie, surely you don’t believe that? If he’d only wanted to see us, your father and Katherine would both be here. It’s perfectly obvious that there’s more to this.”

“Why can’t you just leave Dad and Detective Beckett alone?”

“Because they need a little help. They’re just not addressing their issues.”

“And you think interfering is going to help?”

“Well, nothing else is.”

Alexis looks astonishingly sceptical. “Grams, what do you think is going to happen if you do interrupt something Dad’s arranged with Detective Beckett?”

“Nothing but good. If everyone simply got together and talked it out it would all be fixed in no time. Especially if we all had a glass or two of wine.”

Alexis doesn’t point out that Mr Beckett doesn’t drink. She doesn’t think that her Grams is listening.

“Anyway, sweetie, Mr Beckett is coming round at seven.”

“Coming round?”

“Yes. After all, he’s been here before, and he should get used to coming. Then we’ll all be here, including Katherine.”

“Will we?”

“That’s why we need to fix this. Do keep up, Alexis. Don’t you want your dad to be happy again?”

“I totally do. But…”

“It’s clear Katherine makes him happy, and you like her, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“So obviously she should move in.”

“And you’ll be right there to give her advice?”

“Yes.”

“Grams, I don’t think Detective Beckett wants advice.”

“Nonsense. Every girl needs an older woman in her life.”

Alexis feels ill. Tonight is clearly going to be an epic fail. She wonders if it would be rude to call her dad and get Mr Beckett’s phone number. Maybe they could have a nice dinner somewhere else. But her dad had asked her to try to make Grams see… this is going to be totally horrible.

“I need to go do my English homework,” she says, and escapes. This will be totally, epically, disastrous. Alexis has never wanted to be that teen sneaking alcohol into her room and drinking it, but suddenly she sees the appeal.

“What’ll we do today?”

“I could teach you to cook.”

“Will that take all day?”

“No.”

“Sandcastles? I love building sandcastles.”

“You cheated last time,” Beckett points out.

“You cheated too.”

“Didn’t. I just used basic engineering. Still, maybe not sandcastles.   I’m not sure you could take losing again. Let’s go for a walk, have lunch, and then start cooking after that.”

“Okay.”

Castle finds their coats, courteously holds Beckett’s for her to slide into, and locks up behind them. They walk down to the beach, and turn along towards the rocks.

“You’re happy this morning,” Castle says tentatively.

“Yep. Did some thinking.”

“When? Did you sneak out of bed again? Were you having sneaky midnight feasts without me?”

“No. Just thinking. I didn’t get up.”

“Mm?” Castle hums, and insinuates his arm around her waist. In return, she slips her hand into his back pocket, and bumps hips.

“I was too tired yesterday to see it. Dad pushing upset me, but it’s okay to be upset. I just forgot that for a while. I’m…” she pauses “… not used to arguing with Dad.”

Castle cuddles her in tighter.

“Anyway. It’s not that everything’s going backwards. It’s that I need to keep all of them going forwards. So I’ve moved Dad forwards even if it doesn’t feel like it at all. I’ve moved me forward. So now I need to try to move the next thing to catch up.”

“Alexis is a thing?”

“You’re the wordsmith,” Beckett grumps. “I’m the cop. Anyway. I need to pull that forward to match up with everything else, so even if Dad’s being a pain – to either of us – I need to try to fix seeing you and Alexis together. If it’s with Dad, it needs to be out. If it’s not, because he won’t stop pushing, then maybe at the loft. If your mother isn’t there.”

“I don’t know,” Castle says bleakly. “If she got in your face, you could deal with her. It might solve a lot of problems if you got all Detective Beckett on her.”

“I’m not looking for another fight. I got enough of those.”

“But you’re so hot when you’re angry,” Castle oozes, “oof! Don’t do that!” He stops walking, and turns her into him. “So what changed?”

Beckett shrugs. “ ‘S all easier, here.”

“Easier?”

“Easier to see. Clearer out here. I was so used to not fighting with Dad because I thought upsetting him would send him back to the bottle. So when I did… anyway, I did, and it didn’t, but it’s still a hard habit to break.”

“You were upset because you fought with your dad?”

“Yeah. Silly, isn’t it?”

“You’ve fixed it now.” Castle grins, and catches her hands. “Silly Kat,” he murmurs mischievously. “Chasing your tail.” Grin has changed to very evil smirk. “I’ll chase your tail instead.” He imprisons her two slim wrists in one broad grip and brings that hand sliding down over her rear. “There. Caught you.” He bends his head the few inches that it takes, cups her neck with his free hand, and takes leisurely possession of her mouth, opening on imprecations. Imprecations turn to quiet little purrs, which he steals from her lips and swallows.

“So d’you still want dinner with your dad and Alexis?”

“Yeah, but only if Dad stops pushing me. I don’t want a family fight in front of your daughter.” She grins, though there’s a twisted edge to it. “Don’t want to scare her off straight away.”

Castle kisses her brow.

“And if Dad does keep pushing, well, I think we should try dinner at yours.”

“Without Mother.”

“Yeah. Shooting people across the dinner table is not recommended by Emily Post.”

Castle snickers. “I certainly wouldn’t want to host a dinner at which etiquette was injured.”

“I notice you haven’t mentioned that you don’t want your mother injured,” Beckett says dryly.

Castle simply kisses her again, softly, then with more force. “Okay. Let’s see how it all goes.”

“Okay.” There’s a brief pause. “Lunch?”

“Yeah. And then you have to show me how to cook all these delicious dishes.”

“I bet you licked the cake-mix spoon when you were small.”

“No. Mother can’t cook.”

“What? You’ve never licked the scrapings from the bowl?”

“Of course I have. But only from my cooking. Then Alexis cried dibs.”

“That’s no fun. I always used to get to scrape the bowl” – she suddenly drops her head on to his shoulder. His arms automatically close round her. There is a small sniff.

“ ‘S okay, Kate.”

“It’s not Mom. It’s… one time Mom was out and so Dad thought he’d try, but when I got the scrapings they were horrible. I still don’t know what he did to the cake mix but he threw it in the trash.” She sniffs again. “It was our secret.”

Castle sees more than he thinks Beckett knows. Mostly, what he sees is Beckett beginning to remember that she and her father have a history that isn’t rooted in alcohol and pain, though it’s still tinged with hurt at the abrupt change. A little bit, what he sees is that she isn’t automatically recoiling from his memory of a small Alexis doing what a small Kate had done.

“Let’s go make lunch, without ruining it, and then do our cooking. But I get dibs on any cake scrapings,” he says provocatively.

“That’s not fair. I want them.”

“I said first.”

“I’m teaching you. I won the bet. I get them.”

“They weren’t part of the bet,” Castle says indignantly. “Mine.”

They squabble happily all the way back to the house, by which time the only solution seems to be to make two batches of cookies: one each, and that they each get to scrape the other’s mixing bowl. This is generally agreed to be fair.

The afternoon passes off surprisingly peacefully. Castle, being a good cook and extremely interested in any form of delicious food, is attentive and enthusiastic. Beckett is happy, relaxed, and comfortable. They move around the large kitchen in harmonious patterns, and by the late afternoon everything is prepared for a delectable dinner later on. Looking at the quantities, they mutually and regretfully decide that cookie-baking can wait till another time. That settled, they curl up on the couch with, in Beckett’s case, a book, and in Castle’s, his laptop, and while away the time contentedly together doing nothing in particular. Simply being there is enough.

“Hi, Mr Beckett.”

“Hello, Alexis. Nice to see you again.”

“Jim, how lovely to see you,” Martha swishes down the stairs in dramatic style. “I’m so glad you’ve come. Alexis, sweetie, do pour Jim a drink.”

“Soda, please.”

“Not wine?”

“No, thank you. I don’t drink.”

Martha raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t – to Alexis’s considerable relief – comment. She produces glasses and two sodas.

“Grams, what would you like?”

“I shall have a glass of wine. Dinner will be a few moments.”

“You cook?” Mr Beckett asks. Alexis stifles a laugh.

“Grams doesn’t cook, Dad does all of that. We ordered in. It’s safer that way.”

It’s Mr Beckett’s turn to raise an eyebrow, but not – again to Alexis’s considerable relief – comment. She notices that he looks nervous. She also notices that her Grams seems to be entirely oblivious to the nervousness and is not asking any questions about Mr Beckett’s history. Alexis concludes that her dad has not told Grams what this is all about, and cringes. This is going to be totally awful.

“I’m really glad you’ve come,” Grams says again. “I do wish Katherine had come too. She hasn’t been here since the last time you were here, no matter how much we invite her. She does work terribly hard, but I’m sure she could manage to come occasionally. Richard, of course, is no help at all.”

Alexis peeks at Mr Beckett, and is entirely not reassured by his expression.

“I just want them to be happy,” Grams continues, “but if Katherine never comes here I don’t see how she or Richard think they’re going to work it out. Anyone would think that she doesn’t want to be with us.”

“I’m sure she’ll get here when she has time,” Mr Beckett says, through what Alexis is sure are totally gritted teeth. “She seems very happy with Rick.”

“Well, of course she is. I just wish that he’d bring her here. I’m sure whatever is wrong could all be sorted out if she’d just let me give her a bit of advice and we all had a nice family dinner together.”

Alexis winces.

“Why do you think that Katie needs advice from you? She can ask me.” Mr Beckett says, very precisely. Grams obviously hears the danger in his tone.   Before everything can go totally wrong, the oven beeps.

“Ah, dinner. Alexis, come and help me set it out.”

Alexis throws a can-we-get-out-of-here glance at Mr Beckett, who returns it with a paternal smile and slight smoothing of his face. Plates and dinner arrive on the table. Everyone sits down. There is a very short, uncomfortable pause.

“I guess Rick didn’t tell you why he and Katie thought I should see you without them,” Mr Beckett says, rather coolly. Alexis grips her hands together under the table.

“This was Richard’s idea?” Grams says. “Why would he ask you to come rather than simply talking to me?”

Alexis catches Mr Beckett’s eye. Both of them are thinking because you haven’t listened to him. Complete understanding passes between them.

“Because Dad keeps trying to talk to you and you keep ignoring what he’s saying,” Alexis says. Grams colours up. “You keep trying to, like, interfere and he keeps asking you to leave it and you won’t.”

Mr Beckett closes his open mouth.

“So just listen, Grams, because Dad really wants this all to work out but if you carry on then it’s all going to go totally wrong and it’ll be your fault. He’s told you and told you not to interfere and I don’t get why you’re sneaking round him to try. Why don’t you just let them work it out?”

“Sweetie, you’re too young to understand.”

“No, I’m not. I understand perfectly. It’s you who won’t.”

Mr Beckett coughs in a mild, attention getting fashion. “As I was saying, this was Rick and Katie’s idea. They asked me to explain a little bit of history to you, Martha. For some reason” – that is slightly edged, Alexis notices, and twines her hands closer into each other – “they thought that you might hear me out.” He takes a couple of mouthfuls of his pasta.

“Well, of course,” Grams says, and tosses her head. “I’m completely open minded.”

“You mean you think everyone should be totally unfiltered,” Alexis says. “We talk about everything but not everyone does. Lots of my friends don’t say anything to their family.”

Mr Beckett coughs again, and Alexis remembers what her dad had said. “Sorry, Mr Beckett,” she mumbles.

“I’m an alcoholic,” Mr Beckett says evenly. “I started after my wife was murdered. For the avoidance of doubt, that would be Katie’s mother. Everything reminded me of my wife, even my work. She was an attorney too. I was a mess, and I don’t remember any of it after the first months. Katie used to pick me up and clean me up and take me home. Till she stopped. I hurt her too badly, and she couldn’t save me.” He eats a little more, and drinks his soda.

“She left you to it?” Grams says, horrified. “How could she?”

“She was enabling me. It wasn’t till she stopped that I had a hope of coming out of it. It was the only thing that worked.”

Grams does not look convinced. But Alexis begins to see why Detective Beckett didn’t want to come here. Dad had always tried to keep her away from the seedy underside of the publishing world, and he’d hardly ever let her see him drunk. Detective Beckett and her dad… not so much.

“How old was she?” Alexis asks.

“Nineteen, when Johanna died.”

Alexis winces. That’s not much older than she is. She thinks about how she’d feel if Grams died, and shivers. Even if it weren’t Grams, her mother isn’t much of a mother, but at least she’s alive. If Dad died, though… she’d be totally wiped out. Detective Beckett must have been really, really devastated, and it sounds like her dad wasn’t there for her. If her own mom, or Grams, died, Dad would be right there with her.   She’d really need him there.

“I did a lot of things I didn’t know I did, and it hurt Katie really badly. We’re getting through it, but it takes time.” Mr Beckett scrapes up the last of his dinner. “I miss my wife every day. I guess Katie misses her mom too. I don’t guess anyone would ever be able to replace her, for either of us.”

Alexis is totally sure that has a meaning that she’s just not getting. Grams has a little line of colour above her cheeks, so whatever it is, it’s hit home.

“Well!” Grams huffs. Mr Beckett looks at her mildly. “It’s very brave of you to tell me this, but I don’t really see that it explains why Richard won’t bring Katherine here.”

“Grams, stop pretending to be dumb. You totally know why.” Alexis has suddenly got it.   “You keep wanting to give Detective Beckett advice and she doesn’t want you to. Mr Beckett just said that she misses her mom. You’re just upsetting her.”

“Katie supported me all the time. She’s been there for me, even when I wasn’t there for her.” Alexis blinks as a whole raft of matters fall into place in her head. Alexis can always rely absolutely on her Dad to be there whatever happens. Detective Beckett – can’t.

“I still don’t see” –

“Wake up! It hurts her to see us all happy families. Why aren’t you listening?”

Mr Beckett coughs again, painfully. “I’ve said my piece,” he notes. “Thank you for dinner.”

“You’re leaving?” Alexis says, though she knows that he’s exposed enough, and more will simply start a fight.

“I think you and your grandmother are about to have a discussion I don’t want to hear,” Mr Beckett says to her, and smiles mischievously, though Alexis thinks it’s covering pain. “Time I went home.” He stands. “Martha, nice to see you again. Do let me know when your next production is opening.”

Alexis doesn’t get why that makes Grams blush unpleasantly, either, for a moment. Then she realises.