196. Listen to me, mama

While Monday besets Beckett with murder, it has no interesting or redeeming features whatsoever, which is disappointing. Not that she wishes there to be murders, naturally, but if there are going to be murders, they could at least be interesting. Mundane data-mining and matching, while effective, is not much fun. Tuesday is no better. On the other hand, Castle is going to see Dr Burke tonight, which means that – for once – she can simply sit there and say nothing. Silently supportive is her aim. It’s an odd role reversal, but, she thinks, healthier than where they had mostly been. Give and take. He’s done a lot of giving, and now it’s her turn to give to him.

Oddly, he hasn’t been in today. She’d had a brief text last night to the effect that he was going to try to write, but that doesn’t usually stop him showing up around lunchtime just in case any of them can be inveigled into a decent lunchbreak.

Beckett puts her pen down, steeples her hands under her chin in a style which she would be horrified to learn is very reminiscent of Dr Burke’s signature gesture, and thinks very hard. Castle, she decides, had entirely failed to talk about his discussion with his mother, both on Sunday and yesterday. She’d left it to him to open that conversation, not wishing to push him, just as he has always left when, and how much, to talk up to her. She knows, though, that matters were anything but mended, simply from Castle’s lack of bounce. Her brow wrinkles and her nose scrunches up, as she ponders. Mostly, what she thinks is that Castle is very likely to be talking to his mother, right now, in which case, his discussion with Dr Burke tonight might be very painful.

It’s funny, she muses, how her relationship with her father has improved, just as Castle’s with his mother has fallen apart. She hopes abruptly that this isn’t some seesaw, where only one of them is getting on with the in-laws at any given time – what? What did she just think? In-laws? No. No way. No. Far too soon – what?

She puts her head in her hands, as an alternative to finding a nice comfortable wall against which to beat it. This is all premature, till they’re both fixed.

But the thought sticks around in the back of her mind, without her noticing it. Because they’re getting there: they are very nearly fixed. She is getting there. She’s had so much more work to do, and she’s doing it.

Unlike the work on her desk. Which she had better get back to, before Montgomery notices her lack of concentration. She’ll have to leave Castle till later… but she still takes a few seconds to fire off a quick text. You OK? B. She doesn’t get an answer, which doesn’t ease her mind, but there is nothing more that she can do right now.

Castle had received a call from his mother on Monday evening, corresponding fairly accurately to a time between finishing a run-through and Overture and beginners, please. She simply asks if she can come and talk to him tomorrow morning, and on receiving assent, rings off.

He doesn’t tell Beckett about the call. Since he doesn’t know what he thinks, he doesn’t want to discuss possibilities that might not come to pass, he tells himself. Actually, he’s uncomfortable. For all this time he’s been the strong, stable one in their relationship, and he’s finding it difficult to be on the other side. When Beckett’s there, he doesn’t have that feeling, but she’s not here. He knows, intellectually, that that’s ridiculous: that the last thing she finds him is weak – but his gut doesn’t agree, and right now he’s listening to it not to his brain. His brain, would he but listen to it, is yelling at him to call Beckett, or better yet go to her apartment, and simply let her console him for a while, in whatever way works best. After a while, his brain loses its voice in the puddle of gut-induced discomfort, and while he goes to bed, and even sleeps, his dreams are vaguely unpleasant and his slumber consequently unrefreshing.

The morning is no better. He makes a salad which Alexis can have for dinner, which is the only productive thing he achieves. He can’t write anything: he tries a few times, but all he does is delete it as soon as he reads it back. His brain is still telling him that there’s no shame in talking to Beckett, but he’s still not listening to it. Beckett’s early afternoon text proves she’s worrying about him, but he still doesn’t answer it immediately, justifying himself by noting that he’ll see her at Burke’s at six, and anyway his mother is due any moment now and it would be rude to be texting when she arrives.

His mother is, unusually, precisely on time. She is, also unusually, sombrely dressed, and almost haggard under the careful, discreet make-up. It appears, in fact, as if she has barely slept since Sunday. She doesn’t try to kiss or embrace him. Well. That’s not quite true. She makes a move towards him and then stops herself, almost before she’s begun.

“I only came to say I have always loved you, Richard. That is all.” She turns back towards the door, immense dignity in place. “You might not believe it, but I do. You will always be welcome in my home.”

The door is half open before he manages to react. “Stop,” he says. “Come back.” He gestures her to sit down in the family room, though he sits on a chair, not the couch. Having done that, he doesn’t know where to begin. The room is full of awkward, not-quite-hostile silence.

“Why wouldn’t you just leave Beckett alone?” Castle eventually asks, achieving a neutral tone with some difficulty. He wants his mother to explain exactly why she embarked on this course. Maybe if he can pull answers out of her they can drain this swamp.

“She needs a mother,” Martha says.

Castle regards her with utter disbelief, and takes no trouble whatsoever to conceal it. Martha colours slightly. There is an uncomfortable pause as the weight of Castle’s disbelief presses down.

“I thought she’d want to treat me like a mother.”

That might actually be true. Completely misconceived, but it’s quite possible that his mother’s previous overconfidence had led her to that conclusion.

“Why?”

His mother acquires some spark: that is to say, looks at him as if he’s an idiot. “Because she’s head-over-heels about you.”

“That does not mean that she’s going to treat you like her mother.” Nor, he thinks, does it mean that Beckett will treat Alexis like a daughter. Ugh. That would be so wrong. “Beckett had a mother. Her mother was murdered. No-one is ever going to replace that. I told you that, and you still tried to force your way into mothering her. Why?”

His mother tosses her head defensively. Castle waits, borrowing Beckett’s intimidatory interrogation silence techniques.

“Because then I could stay,” she mutters. “If I was her family too then you’d never have suggested I should move out.”

“Despite me saying over and over that it was only if you didn’t stop pressuring her that you’d have to move out?”

“It wouldn’t have mattered, because Katherine would have wanted me to stay, and then you’d have let me.”

It’s possibly just as well Castle doesn’t have a drink, because he’d have spat it all over the table at that piece of idiocy.

“Beckett would never have accepted anyone at all as a replacement mother. You could have been a cross between Mother Teresa and all the female saints and she wouldn’t have had it. She would never have moved in while you kept on at her. I told you that.” He stops himself continuing that line of argument. “You’re not usually so unkind or unperceptive” – his mother winces at the words – “and you must know that it wasn’t going to work. So why were you really so keen on her being on your side?”

“I’ve just told you,” Martha says angrily.

“And I just don’t believe that that’s all of it. So tell me the rest of it, or go home until you’re prepared to tell it. I said on Sunday that if you wouldn’t tell the whole truth there was nothing to say. That’s still where I’m at. If you won’t tell me the truth then I’m not going to try and fix this. Up to you.”

He sits back in the chair, clasps his hands together in an attitude of calm patience and authority, and says absolutely nothing further. His mother mutters blackly to herself, but he’s backed her into a corner and she knows it. She only has the same two alternatives that she had when she came here: tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth – the judicial words are quite deliberate – or leave. Up to her.

“I was scared,” Martha spits out. “This was my home and you were bringing in someone new and then you started talking about moving me out and it was just like that cheating, lying creep in LA.”

Castle boggles. What?

“He had everything in joint names and then he started introducing his so-called daughter in law” – she stops. Castle has just about managed to shut his mouth. He’s also just about managing not to re-open it on a tide of absolute fury and denial that he is anything like that man. Dr Burke had been right all the way along, which does not help. About the only thing he hadn’t spotted was the other woman.

“I knew you wouldn’t behave anything like that,” Martha says, hopeless and old. “I knew Katherine wasn’t her. But it looked just the same and it triggered all my fears about losing everything, so I thought if we were close it would all be different. I didn’t want to lose my family. I couldn’t bear losing my family a third time.”

“Third time?”

“Now, that creep in LA, and when my loving parents threw me out for wanting to act.”

Castle gapes uselessly. That last piece he had never heard.

“I couldn’t get parts because I’d been out of the New York scene” – Castle fills in in LA in that sentence – “for too long and I was just an old, has-been actor tagging along on your coat-tails. And then you met Katherine and it was history all over again.”

“How could it be the same when she wasn’t coming here?” Castle points out, unable to control his exasperation. “First you say it was because she wouldn’t come here and be a family and now you say it’s because she reminded you of your cheating ex’s other woman weaselling into your life? This makes no sense at all, Mother!”

“You said you’d move me out so she could move in!” Martha cries. “It felt just like the last time.”

Castle’s upset and temper get the better of him, regardless of his determination to have a calm discussion. “So, according to you, I’ve evicted you, threatened to leave you destitute, and never given up anything for you. According to you, I was going to throw you out in favour of another woman. According to you, you’ve sacrificed your whole life for me. Is that what you’ve felt for forty years? That’s not love, that’s martyrdom.” He snatches an infuriated breath. “Did it ever occur to you to ask me about any of this? You know, rather than making assumptions? Or tell me you were worried or unhappy? I could have fixed this then. I could have told you that I’d never have let you down like that. I did tell you I wouldn’t let you down. But you didn’t ask me and you still just assumed that I would.” He sighs, bitterly, and lowers his voice to a forced calm. “I can’t say I’m flattered. I get it. I just can’t believe that you thought that I’d be just as bad as them.”

“I didn’t think that!” Martha flings back. “I didn’t think that.”

Castle has a sudden, unhappy flashback to Dr Burke saying I do not believe that she does think that. He had also, unfortunately, said I do not, incidentally, recommend that you say that. It would not answer. Bit late to remember that now.

“It just all came back on me.”

“Why couldn’t you just talk to me?” Castle forces out.

“Because I couldn’t bear it if I was wrong. What if you didn’t love me?” Her voice drops into fragmented misery. “No-one else had. You were all I had. The only person in the world who loved me no matter what.”

“And how was treating me like you didn’t care going to help that? I kept telling you that I still loved you and you wouldn’t listen to what I wanted and wouldn’t tell me what was really wrong till it was too late to change anything.” He tries to get himself under some sort of control, still just about managing not to raise his voice. “I thought once you found that you were still a big name it would all settle down again.”

“It was still you. You made them take me on.”

“So now I’m a liar?”

“What?”

“I didn’t make them do anything. I told you that. I said you’d likely take it if asked and they bit my hand off. You know who got you in there? Beckett. She’s the one who said we had to use you on the case, because she’s the one who found that the whole lot of them worshipped you. I didn’t have to do anything at all except say you’d probably do it if asked. So you got that wrong too. You don’t need me.”

“Of course I do. You’re my son.”

“And you’re my mother, but need isn’t love.” Castle stops, and suddenly realises the time. “I have to go. I have to be in Midtown in less than half an hour.” He stands up. There is no chance that he will be on time for Dr Burke. Martha looks tired, and miserable, and ravaged. “Mother, come back tomorrow morning. We’ll finish this then.” His heart goes out to her, and he manages an awkward hug. “I do still love you. But that doesn’t change that you’ve hurt me. Now go and knock tonight’s audience dead.”

He ushers her relatively gently out of the door and closes it. He really doesn’t want to go to see Dr Burke, but that probably means that he needs to. He hastens out, leaving a quick note for Alexis, and takes the first cab he sees.

Beckett arrives at Dr Burke’s office only a few moments early, and is both surprised and worried that Castle is not there before her. She’s even more worried when she is called through and Castle still hasn’t shown up.

“Good evening, Detective Beckett.”

“Hey,” she returns, distractedly.

“I had thought you had advised me that Mr Castle was also attending?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there some matter for which his presence is required? I had thought that your relationship with your father was now progressing well, and that Mrs Rodgers had been dealt with.”

Dr Burke observes the displeased twist to Detective Beckett’s mouth, and is concerned.

“It’s Martha,” Detective Beckett says. “And it’s not me we want to discuss tonight, it’s Castle.”

“Oh?” Dr Burke steeples his fingers, and regards Detective Beckett over them. “But this is your therapy, not Mr Castle’s.”

“And I’m donating this session to him,” Detective Beckett says decidedly. “He needs it.”

“What has occurred?” Dr Burke asks, already sure that some significant event is, once more, interfering with his treatment plan. Really, this is most irritating. He had almost begun to think that the disruption to his well-ordered life occasioned by Detective Beckett and all of her highly complicated relationships and attachments was drawing to a close.   He will be most thoroughly content when his only contact with any of them is the occasional indulgence in one of Mr Castle’s books.

“Martha moved out on Saturday. It didn’t go well at all. She turned into the Wicked Witch of the West and took the opportunity to have a go at Castle as well. He was pretty upset. So now he thinks she doesn’t care about him and never did.”

“Mm. I see. What, may I ask, did you do?”

Detective Beckett stares at him. Dr Burke fails entirely to understand why his statement should come as any surprise to her at all. It is perfectly obvious that Detective Beckett would have defended Mr Castle: Dr Burke wishes only to know the form which such defence had taken.

“I went and told her what she’d done.” Dr Burke raises his eyebrows. “That she’d made sure that Castle thought she didn’t love him and didn’t care about any of the things he’s done for her.”

“Ah.”

“Then I went back to the loft and stayed with Castle. Martha turned up Sunday morning, so I left, then I came back when she was gone. It wasn’t any better. But I think Castle was seeing her this afternoon even though he said he wasn’t coming to the precinct because he was going to write.”

“Mm. I can see that Mr Castle may be in some need of a discussion. Were you intending to stay?”

“Only if Castle wants me to. If he doesn’t, I brought a book, and I’ll go get a coffee or something.”

“I think,” Dr Burke says judicially, “that it might be helpful for you to explain to me, when Mr Castle arrives, precisely how you felt and why you then confronted Mrs Rodgers.”

“Castle knows all that. I told him.”

“You told him, or he guessed and you agreed with his conclusions?” Dr Burke asks, with a hint of disapproval.

“He guessed,” Detective Beckett admits.

“Mm. I consider it would be effective for you to explain. In that way, he will understand the depth of your support for him. That will be most valuable when he comes to explain his own views of these events.” Dr Burke pauses, and sits back in his chair. “I consider that you have made a material breakthrough, in the pursuit of Mr Castle’s happiness. It was well done, Detective. You have weighed up” – she hisses negatingly – “consciously or not, competing emotional interests, and come to a rational decision as to the most important. In doing so, you have, I perceive, become far more comfortable with visiting Mr Castle’s home, even when his daughter is present, and you have shown yourself that you are able to face difficult familial situations without becoming overly distressed.”

“Oh,” Detective Beckett says, rather faintly. “I guess.”

At that point, Dr Burke’s receptionist calls through to advise him that Mr Castle has arrived. “Please send him in,” requests Dr Burke.