195. I didn't mean to hurt you

“Hi, Dad,” carols from the top of the stairs, as Castle and Beckett are addressing a large quantity of well-crisped bacon, pancakes and syrup, washed down with coffee.

“Hey,” Castle responds.

“Detective Beckett?” are the next words up. “I thought…”

“She came back,” Castle says, before Beckett can say anything evasive.

“You did? Awesome!” Alexis looks around. “Are there enough pancakes for me or do I need to make more?”

Beckett sits dumbfounded by Alexis’s complete non-issue with her presence. She’d been so worried about it, and Alexis doesn’t seem to care. It doesn’t stop her blushes.

“There are plenty,” Castle says.

Alexis plumps down at the table with a plate and starts to load it with pancakes and bacon. “Delicious,” she mumbles through a mouthful.

Beckett finishes her plateful and squirms uncomfortably. “I need to get home,” she says.

“Oh,” say both Castles together, identically disapproving for diametrically different reasons. “Why?”

“Chores. Gotta be ready for work tomorrow.”

“Oh,” they chorus disappointedly.

“Um, I’ll just get my things,” Beckett says, and slides off her stool. She disappears into the office en route to the bedroom.

Alexis turns and quirks her eyebrows at Castle, whose ears turn a delicate rose pink. She smirks knowingly. Fortunately, she doesn’t say anything. Castle endeavours to preserve some parental dignity. He’s not really succeeding when the door sounds.

Castle looks at Alexis, who shrugs, teenager-esque. Castle isn’t expecting anyone at ten-thirty on a Sunday, either. Alexis bounces up to open the door.

“Oh,” she says flatly. “It’s you. What do you want?”

Castle turns round slowly with a feeling of gut-wrenching dread.

“Mother.” He is entirely unwelcoming. He can only just hear the very quiet click of his bedroom door closing, and wonders which side of the door Beckett is on. A definitive set of hard clacks on the floor tell him that it’s this one. Beckett walks out to the table, interrogation face on and complete disinterest in her attitude: plants herself beside him. Alexis hasn’t shifted from the door.

“Alexis,” Castle says coolly, “let Grams in, please.” His tone doesn’t indicate any pleasure in the request. Alexis moves clear of the door, back to Castle’s side. The arrangement of persons is unpleasantly confrontational.

“Have you left something behind, Mother?”

“Richard,” Martha starts, colour limning her cheeks. Then she stops. “I wanted to talk to you,” she says quietly, almost pleading.

“Really? Another round of telling me all about my cruelty and unreasonableness? No, thanks. If you haven’t left anything, you’ve no reason to visit.”

Alexis winces. Beckett doesn’t twitch an eyelash. Martha crumples as if he’d punched her.

“I didn’t believe her,” Martha whispers. “I didn’t think it could be true.” A tear escapes the corner or her eye. What have I done? is written across her face.

Beckett looks at her, impassive. Castle turns back to the table, and his coffee.

“It’s time I went,” Beckett says, as if Martha weren’t there. She drops a quick peck on Castle’s head, strides past Martha, who shifts from Beckett’s inexorable path, and leaves.

It’s not until the door closes behind Beckett that anyone realises that she has shut Martha in.

“Richard…”

“Still here?” Castle doesn’t bother turning round.

“Why are you here, Grams?” Alexis asks aggressively. “Haven’t you done enough to upset Dad yet?”

“Sweetie” –

“It’s Alexis. Don’t call me sweetie.”

That hits Castle hard. He has a sudden memory of Jim’s white, ghastly face as Beckett had flung I’m not Katie. My name is Kate at him. Jim had looked like he’d been shot. He spins round on his seat.

“Why are you here, Mother?” he asks neutrally.

“She said… but I didn’t believe it… and of course I love you. How could I not? You’re my son.”

Castle’s expression hasn’t altered one jot. He isn’t precisely radiating belief. Behind his poker face, his mind is working furiously. Beckett must have said to his mother that he didn’t believe she loved him any more. She’d managed not quite to say that, earlier. Didn’t care is not at all the same as never loved.

“You’re my family.”

Castle’s memories of Beckett’s sessions with Jim and Dr Burke come forcibly to mind. You were my only family, Jim had cried, and Beckett had ripped him apart until he was weeping and destroyed; and almost destroyed herself in the process. You’re my daughter. You’re all I have left. And only this morning Beckett had said are you going to let it warp you like I did?...don’t make the same mistakes I did…don’t ruin your life.

He doesn’t have to put up with mistreatment, or lack of boundaries. But what matters here is being able to make the right decisions for him. He has to decide what he’ll put up with. He doesn’t want to find himself in the position Beckett had been in: facing his parent across a therapist’s office and unloading years of pain in one devastating storm-surge. Nor does he want to spend months unpicking old errors and misunderstandings, as the Becketts had, all because neither of Jim or Beckett could or would talk honestly to each other.

He sighs.

“Alexis, would you leave Grams and me alone, please,” he says firmly. “Mother, go through to my” – there is a marginal emphasis on my – “office.”

Martha complies, shakily.

“But Dad” –

“No, Alexis. This is between Grams and me. I’ll handle this.” He hugs her, ignoring her sceptical expression. “Now, be off with you.”

Alexis reluctantly ascends the stairs, flicking backwards glances at almost every stair-tread in case her father should change his mind. Castle doesn’t. Alexis’s presence is absolutely not required. Nor is Beckett’s, and where last night he had been hurt that she was absent (though her reasons turned out to be the best possible), right now he is profoundly grateful that she has gone.

He enters his office and sits down, deliberately behind the desk, creating a certain emotional and physical distance; asserting with the placement an air of his authority in his home. Then he simply waits for a moment, until his mother looks at him. The moment of calm allows him to look beneath the careful make-up to the red-rimmed eyes and slight shadowing of her hollowed cheeks; the crumpled, pallid skin. Her hands are wrung together. Whatever Beckett had said, it has clearly hit home hard.

And suddenly, he knows where to start.

“What did Beckett say to you?” he asks, still neutral, leaning forward on his desk.

His mother half-sniffs, but it’s more miserable than offended. Her hands twist and twine.   Castle waits, again, until it’s clear there isn’t a response arriving.

“Mother, if you can’t tell me the whole truth about what was said, then there’s nothing more to say.”

“Didn’t she tell you?” Martha says bitterly. “Seeing as she’s already moved in.”

“No.” Castle has absolutely no compunction at all about shading that truth. He wants his mother to tell him precisely what was said. If she has to repeat it out loud, then truth will be laid out before them. “And Beckett is not living here. Now, either tell me what was said, or leave until you can.”

He’s implacable, and deep within it’s killing him, but he has to bring this to a head now. He almost wishes for Dr Burke. Almost.

“She said,” Martha forces out eventually, “that you think I never cared. That I blamed you and that everything you did didn’t count.” Her face twists. “It’s not true. She’s got it all wrong. We are a family and I do love you.” Her hands wring again. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.” Another twist of knotted fingers. “I… I’m sorry, Richard.”

“Are you? Really? Because we’ve had this discussion before. How many times have you implied that I don’t care about you, or that I’ll leave you penniless and on the street, or that you’ve given up everything for me? I didn’t ask to be born. I didn’t ask you to marry that LA fraudster. I didn’t ask you to guilt trip me about your sacrifices. All I asked was that you stayed out of my relationship with Beckett and out of her business. You kept saying you loved me but you wouldn’t do the one thing I asked you to.” He pauses. “So why should I have let you keep on doing what you like and just spouting out sorry every time you go too far as if it’s a magic cure?” He shrugs, and sits back. “Words don’t fix anything, Mother.”

She gasps, and the bitter tears start to puddle in her eyes.

“Only actions. I want you to think about what I just said. I want you to go home – to your home – and think about what Beckett said to you.” He stands up, and opens the door. Perforce, Martha stands too. “Go home, Mother. When you’ve really thought about what you’re doing and saying, and what you’ve done and said, then we’ll talk. Not now.” He escorts her to the front door, somehow towering over her, and opens it. “I still love you.” Can you say the same hangs in the air around them. He steps back, and she leaves, the door clunking shut behind her.

Castle returns to his office, thumping heavily into his chair. It had to be said, but his stomach is still churning over it. He simply sits, head on hands, staring at the grain of the desk’s wood.

He doesn’t look up when soft footsteps enter, but he certainly does when arms with an entirely familiar scent surround him and a kiss arrives on his head.

“How did you get here?” he asks. “You went home.”

“You gave me a key, remember? And I didn’t go home. I went to the coffee bar on West Broadway that you collected me at when I went running without my wallet.”

“How did you know Mother was gone?”

Beckett colours up. “I didn’t.”

“Uh?” Castle says, confused, and goggles at her.

“If she’d still been here I’d have sneaked back out.”

“Like you sneaked in? I didn’t hear a thing.”

Beckett blushes a little harder.

“Sneaky. I like sneaky.” Castle sneaks an arm round Beckett, and even more sneakily pulls so that she ends up on his lap. “Especially when I’m being sneaky.”

Beckett humphs, but wriggles to be a little more comfortable and runs her arm round his neck. “You okay?” she asks.

“Urmphm,” Castle emits.

“Don’t prevaricate,” Beckett raps.

“Have I told you I love your vocabulary? Prevaricate… pre-var-i-cate… mmmm.”

“Castle!” He produces a hurt, puppy-dog expression, that doesn’t fool Beckett for a second. “Very cute. Doesn’t work on me.” He tries again. All but the hardest of hearts would be melted. Beckett has the hardest of hearts. “So you’re not okay.” She pats his shoulder. “Wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay then.” She stays quietly where he’s brought her, nestling in, softer against him than her words would imply, petting soothingly.

“Dad, Dad! Dad, I’m going to Paige’s – oh!” Alexis bounces in, and stops dead. She blushes brightly, which almost matches the colour of Beckett’s face and Castle’s ears, and then smirks wickedly. “Have a nice day!” she chirps, and makes a run for it.

“Well, that was awkward,” Castle says, after a brief, scarlet-faced pause.

“You think?”

There’s another pause.

“On the other hand,” Castle purrs dangerously, “now there’s nobody here but us.”

Beckett just has time for that conclusion to reach her brain from her ears when her mouth is invaded. Castle isn’t taking any prisoners. Her head is angled to his satisfaction, her body clamped to his, and he kisses her ruthlessly.

“I need you,” he growls. “You’re mine and I need you.”

But all he does is kiss her, frantically, desperately, passionately; keep her tightly against him and not give the slightest indication that he’ll ever let go; and in between each kiss he’s whispering don’t go, don’t ever let me go.

“I won’t,” she breathes, when she’s finally given a space to reply. “I won’t let you go.”

Castle, still wrung out by the entire weekend, simply holds on to her, his desperation passed and reaction setting in. His head drops to her shoulder, and his arms slacken slightly. He can’t bear to let go of the one adult on whom he can currently rely.

Some quiet time passes, and Castle begins to recover himself, drawing consolation and strength from the knowledge that Beckett had pushed straight through her own previously overwhelming dislikes to fight on his side. It’s not something he thinks she would have been able to do even three weeks ago, before the theatre case, but somewhere in there she’s taken another giant step forward, without either of them really noticing how big it had been. He dimly realises that it’s the good side of her tendency to decide what should be done and then do it regardless of the personal cost: the one that she uses to find and fight for justice for the victims, the one that’s taken her to the decision that she needs to fight for him: however she may feel about the actions she has to take, she’ll take them anyway.

She doesn’t say much, and what she does say is all too often hidden behind snark, brusqueness or flip replies, but if only he looks at what she does, he’ll always see the truth.

The truth is, she’s all in.

He stays just as he is for some while longer, eyes closed, finding in Beckett’s undemanding silence the peace and distance that he needs to attain, drifting.

Eventually his drifting is interrupted by Beckett shifting and moving away from him. Castle doesn’t like that.

“Come back.”

“My arm’s gone to sleep, and I need a minute.”

He reluctantly lets go. Beckett removes herself. Castle stands up, and immediately realises that his feet have gone to sleep, but are now awakening.   He hates having pins-and-needles. In order to try and fix it, he wanders to the kitchen and realises that they hadn’t cleared up, so he starts on that. When Beckett returns, she follows him and works around him, snitching fragments of bacon and cold pancake along the way. Castle wrinkles his nose disgustedly.

“It’s cold and stale.”

“It’s food. I’m hungry.”

“It’s usually me who’s hungry. You live on coffee and takeout.”

Beckett humphs at him, and defiantly snitches another piece of cold bacon.

“Beckett, stop courting food poisoning and let’s tidy up. We can have some edible lunch right after.”

“I like bacon. And two hours isn’t going to give me food poisoning.”

“Seeing as you eat that salmonella flavoured slop from the food truck one night in three, you probably think nothing’s going to give you food poisoning, but I’d still prefer it if you didn’t take the risk.”

Beckett looks carefully at Castle, and comprehends that actually he needs to be taking care of someone right now. Since she’s the only person here, she’s the victim. She growls, for form’s sake, and glares, also for form’s sake, and stops snitching the bacon. There wasn’t much left, anyway.

Tidying up is rapidly achieved, lunch arrives in the form of bread, cheese and cold meat with some salad, and soon enough Beckett’s stomach is pleasantly filled. Unfortunately, however much she’d like to stay hanging around doing nothing very much with Castle for the rest of the day, she does have to deal with her chores and in particular her washing, which is threatening to make invasive forays over her entire bathroom instead of staying safely contained in her laundry basket.

“I need to get home,” she says. Castle’s face falls.

“I don’t want you to go home,” he argues. “Stay here.”

“I can’t. I have to deal with stuff at home – oh, shit.”

“Uh?”

“It’s Sunday. I promised Dad I’d go for dinner. I’ve got to get everything done before I go.” She springs into action. “I need to get back right now.” Suddenly she stops. “You could come back with me. Er – if you wanted.”

Castle hadn’t thought of that, being too lost in his own head. “Okay,” he says, much more happily, and rapidly scribbles a note for Alexis. He’s barely scrawled Dad at the end when Beckett’s hurrying him up and out the door.

Beckett’s attitude to chores is pretty much the same as her attitude to anything: go at it until it surrenders. Washing is put on first – naturally, thinks Castle, in an organised and logical fashion so that it is spinning merrily while everything else happens.

Except that everything else doesn’t start to happen, while Beckett is nibbling her lip and frowning gently.

“Beckett?” queries Castle, after thirty seconds of nothingness.

“Oh – thinking,” she says. Castle had rather worked that out. “Um…” Beckett is not normally prone to doubtfulness, but that has almost the same flavour as her earlier suggestion that he come here with her. He waits. “Um, I could ask Dad if you could come too.”

Castle’s first instinct is to say Yes. So is his second, and third. Unfortunately, by the time his mouth is ready to speak his fourth instinct has kicked in – the one that holds common sense.

“I can’t,” he says ruefully. “Alexis has school tomorrow and I need to fix dinner at home.”

“Okay,” Beckett accepts, though she’s rather downbeat about it. “You said you’d tell me if you couldn’t do something.”

“Yeah. I could do something else, though,” he leers.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“I can wield a mean vacuum.”

“You’re on,” Beckett says with alacrity, and the chores are done in double quick time, followed by coffee, gentle snuggling on the couch – and a vicious game of Sorry which is not completed by the time that Beckett needs to leave to visit her father and Castle needs to go home and attend to dinner. They mutually agree to leave the game set up and to complete it another day.

Just as Castle is about to indulge in a very leisurely kiss of farewell, Beckett has another thought. “You could always come to the session on Tuesday. I’m sure Burke would adjust.”

“Urg. Why are you torturing me? I don’t wanna see Burke.”

Beckett shrugs. “Up to you. Just a thought.”

Castle pushes away the horrible thought and kisses Beckett thoroughly instead. It’s a much better plan than seeing Burke, and gives him far more pleasure.

Unfortunately the horrible thought won’t leave him alone, all the way home, all the way through preparing dinner, and all the way through eating dinner. It then pursues him all the way through clearing up, and gets between him and his writing, procrastinating, on-line games and fan sites. Even his sales stats don’t remove it, which is downright unfair.

Eventually, he begrudgingly sends a text to Beckett. OK, I’ll come to Burke’s. Mysteriously, as soon as he’s done so he relaxes, and then falls asleep instantly.