44. It's all over now

Beckett walks past Esposito, Ryan, and finally Castle as if none of them were there. She doesn’t stop at her desk, but enters the break room, downs a glass of ice-cold water, and stands utterly still.  She’s been benched.  Montgomery’s benched her.  She can’t comprehend it.  She’s done everything right, at work.  Always.  She’s not let a single ball drop.  She’s given it her all.  And now, suddenly – it’s not enough.

Nothing’s been enough. She is not enough.  Not for her father, not for the job she loves.  Not for her friends, and not for anything else.  Ever since her father got drunk, nothing’s ever been enough.  He’d destroyed her life then, and now all the choices she’s made since had only rebuilt it on shifting sand.  Just like the house built on sand in the parable: the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell. 

She puts the empty glass in the sink, walks out, shuts down, and leaves without a word, with only one single, agonised, desperately pleading glance at Castle.

Castle watches Beckett, who’s moving on autopilot, completely switched off. “What happened?” he says, but doesn’t get an answer.  He doesn’t think she hears him, or sees him, lost in her own world.  He follows her down in the elevator, towards her car, into the passenger seat.  “What happened?” he asks again, more sharply, but puts a hand over hers.  Her fingers are chilled under his warmth.

“I’m to go home till I’m not throwing up.” There’s almost as much emotion in her words as there is on the face of a porcelain doll.  She’s almost as pale, too.

“I’ll come with you.” She shrugs, a minimal movement, and neither objects nor approves, but there is still that same agony in her eyes.  There is no more talking as she drives precisely through the Manhattan streets.  He doesn’t try to start a discussion then, nor when he goes up with her to her apartment, nor when he enters.  She slumps on her couch, cold hands lying still, inactive in her lap.  All her fire has gone out.

“What did Montgomery say to you, Beckett?”

She turns to him where he’s standing, turns so slowly, an ungreased spindle, spinning without purpose.

“I’m benched.” She might as well have been saying that the sky is grey, so little does her voice change.

“How long for?” She doesn’t answer that, looking through him with those empty, lifeless eyes.

“He sent me home. I’ve done everything I could do for the job, I’m the best in the precinct, and he’s still benched me.”  Her breath catches.  “Nothing I’ve done was enough.  Nothing I could do has ever been enough,” she whispers, but Castle hears her anyway, and his heart breaks for her.

Breaking heart or not, this is his last chance: now, when she’s probably hit bottom. It’s going to be hard.  She’s probably going to hate him.  But maybe, just maybe, she’s in a place where one last push will tip her into realising that she has to do something. 

Only Beckett can save herself. He can’t.  He can only walk away, and hope she saves herself.  He takes a breath – and before he begins, Beckett says, “It’s all fallen apart.”

Say what? He can’t have said that out loud.  She’s still speaking, almost to herself.

“Everything I’ve done for my dad, and I still couldn’t be there yesterday when it mattered. What’s wrong with me, that I can’t listen to his story?”  She looks up, straight at Castle, pain scarred across her face and agony blazoned in her eyes.  “Why can’t I even do that?”

Castle sits down hard, next to her. He’d psyched himself up to tell her hard truth in the faint, last hope that doing so would bring her to realise that she needed something more than her empty life, but there’s finally a chink in the armour and she’s broken, about one minute before he was going to do his damnedest to break her.  He is unimaginably relieved.  Breaking Beckett would have broken something deep in his soul.

“Because you haven’t ever talked to him properly about it, have you?” He draws a shot at a venture, though he’s noticed that open and honest conversations about how they feel have not exactly figured in the Beckett family dynamic, or indeed in any form of the Beckett personal dynamic.  She winces.  He drops an arm around her.  “In fact,” he says slowly, hoping that his timing is better than he usually manages, “you haven’t ever talked to anyone properly about it, have you?  You thought you had, but…maybe you didn’t.”

“I went to counselling.  Therapy.  Al-Anon.  I did everything you’re supposed to do.  I went through all of it.  Forgave him.  Listened to him as he went through his twelve steps.  He made his amends and I forgave him.”

“Did you?” Castle asks calmly.

“Of course I did! It wasn’t him.  It was the booze.  It’s a disease.”  Her voice rises, a little frantically.  “It wasn’t his fault.”

“So why’d you never get angry with him now? After all, he wasted your time by dragging you over when he knew nothing about Schickoff & Schultz.  Anybody else trying that on you would have been turned into ground beef.  Or when he suckered me into inviting you both to the loft.  Why didn’t you tell him the truth, Beckett?  Why didn’t you tell him that you weren’t up to going because it upsets you?”

“It’s not his fault,” she says miserably. “It’s not his fault.”

“What’s not his fault?”

She doesn’t answer, leaning forward on to her knees with her face hidden. Castle lifts her face with his hand under her chin.  “Talk to me, Beckett.  Why’s it not his fault?”

“It never worked. He just drank more till he couldn’t hear me.”

Uh-oh. If she upset him… Jim had said she never loses her temper. I thought she’d grown out of it.  She’d merely rammed it down because he drank more whenever she did.

“If I upset him…” She trails off.  “I did forgive him.”  But she sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. 

“Beckett, at least stop lying to yourself. I mean, I’d quite like it if you stopped lying about this to me too, but listen to yourself.”  She’s not hearing him.

“I can’t do this. I can’t lose it like this.  I have to be there for them but I’m so tired of always being there.” 

This time, she’s sober when she says it, and she shivers under his arm around her shoulders. He slides closer, hoping to warm her. 

“Why does it have to be you? Why can’t you lose it?”

Suddenly she turns away from him.

“I let him drown.  I walked away and for three years more he drowned.  Every knock, every phone call, he could have been dead.  And I did nothing to stop him.  I can’t bear it happening again.  I couldn’t watch him kill himself and I couldn’t stop him.”  She stops.

“But now I can.”

In that, he hears all the full-force determination of Detective Kate Beckett, who can’t ever be Kat with anyone else. The reasons for Kat are beginning to become clear – and the reasons for Kat never being there in anyone else’s company are equally emerging, because she’s been shielding his past from the whole wide world.  If you are always hiding history, and always waiting for the call… whether for support or to tell you about failure… you can never be off-duty.  Not, at least, if you’re still compensating for walking away.  Not if you can’t forgive yourself, and consequently also believe you’ve never been forgiven.  Not if you can’t believe that you can be loved, because of the decisions you’ve made… because your father loved alcohol more than he loved you right at the point where you needed him most. 

Castle pulls Beckett back round, a little more forcefully than her physical non-resistance would warrant. “Not when you’re like this, you can’t.”  He holds her gaze.  “You need to stand down, stop, and work out why you’ve finally started to lose it.  You need to talk to someone who knows what they’re doing.”  Incipient argument rises in her face.  “No, listen to me.  You could talk to me – you can talk to me, but I don’t understand enough to help properly.  You won’t talk to Lanie.  If you don’t sort this out in your own head it’ll just keep happening.”  He has a flash of inspiration.  “If you don’t talk to someone, you’ll upset your dad more.  He’s already sure there’s something wrong, so if you don’t get it sorted he’ll start trying to find out about it.  That’s not what you want, is it?”

“He can’t do that.”

“So head it off. Go talk to someone.  It’ll get Montgomery off your back, too.”

He picks her up and resettles her against him, tucked in his lap. Her face is buried in his neck.  “I did all of it.  And now I have to do it all again?”  She’s not talking to him, though: she’s talking to herself.  He strokes down her back, slow, gentle and completely non-sexual; affection inherent in the movement and touch.

“Stand down, for now. Take some time, stay here.  Lean on me.”  Be eased, be soothed. Be mine.  “You just need time to think it through.” 

He doesn’t suggest that he should help further: though he’ll hold her close and listen to her for as long as she wants or needs, he can’t solve this. Far too many risks in trying that: he knows nothing about what she went through except for his recent research, and under the Detective’s shield and gun she’s as fragile as spun sugar.  His general confidence in his ability to make things right does not extend to a complicated psychological issue rooted as deeply as this.  For once, he recognises his limitations.  He can be supportive, and comforting, and there to make her stand down, he can provide the assertively physical sexuality that she both likes and needs, he can potentially (if she lets him) allow her to be the softer woman that sometimes she has to be to balance her day-to-day command, but he can’t cure this.  Instead, he simply cuddles her.

“I don’t want to do it all again. I did it.  It was bad enough then when it had a purpose.  When I needed to do it.  I really worked through it, so I was ready…” 

Castle startles, and then has to soothe Beckett back into her curled-in position. He has a horrible premonition that Beckett doesn’t mean excavated all my feelings but did it as fast as possible to be done with it. 

“I got through it. My therapist was really pleased with how fast I sorted myself out.”

He knew it. He also wonders what sort of therapist would have let Beckett get away with that sort of superficial analysis.  Though… if she’d been at college, or just starting out, likely she couldn’t afford a really good therapist.  He wonders, though, if she couldn’t afford decent therapy, how she’d managed this apartment?  It doesn’t fit, because if she can live on Manhattan she can afford a competent practitioner.  If she’d bothered really to look for one.  Much more likely that she took the first available NYPD therapist, or one on the NYU list if it was that early, who missed her completely overdriven personality.  Beckett is very good at deception.  Self-deception, which is of course a particularly effective way to deceive everyone else.  No doubt she really thought she’d done it right.  It’s her whole history: be the best, the fastest, the first to the finish. 

It’s just a shame that she tried that for therapy too, where it really does not work. So he’s read, anyway.

He hums, non-committally, and strokes some more. Gradually the biting tension in her spine smooths out.  She’s still buried in his chest, though.  Words are occasionally emerging, and while that happens he’s not going to do anything to change it.  Not while there’s still a very decent chance that she’s talking herself into going back to therapy.  He really does not want to take the nuclear option. 

He’s still softly cuddling her a few minutes later, no further words having escaped but a suspicious amount of slight sniff having eventuated, when, much to his annoyance, his phone starts to ring. One look at the number leaves him not so much annoyed as terrified.

“Rick Castle,” he says, and disentangles Beckett to move her slightly away from the phone.

“Rick, how is Katie? She’s not at the precinct.  I called but she isn’t picking up…”

Jim sounds very worried indeed – but sober.

“She’s with me.” Beckett looks up, working out to whom he’s speaking, and tenses up immediately.  “She’s fine.”  She eases very slightly on finding that Castle will lie to her father without compunction to stop him worrying about her.  “Are you okay?”  Pause.  “That’s good.  Yeah, she’ll call later.  We’re a little” – he develops a smug, very male, pleased tone – “busy right now.”

“What the hell, Castle?”  Beckett’s indignant tone adds veracity to his inducement of Jim’s misinterpretation.

“Really?” Jim says. “This sounds like something I do not want to know about my daughter, Rick.”

“Okay,” Castle says amiably. “Do you want to talk to her?  She’s right here next to me.”

There’s an embarrassed silence from Jim’s end of the phone. “No,” he says eventually.  “I’ll catch her later.  Bye.”

“Bye, Jim.” Castle swipes his phone off and smirks at Beckett, who, in the rush of aggravated annoyance at his insinuations to her father, has more colour and life than at any time since yesterday morning.

“What the hell are you doing?   That was my dad!  And you made him think… you… you oversexed arrogant brain-dead idiot.”

“And it worked,” Castle says smugly. “He’s not worrying about you right now.  He might be polishing his shotgun, but he’s stopped worrying.”

Beckett flaps wordlessly at him. He brings her back close in and tucks his arm around her irritated frame.  “You look better, too.  I like you when you’re cross.  It’s very cute.”

She growls. Actually, positively growls.  He hears it with a wash of relief.  Growls mean that Beckett is starting to recover some normality.

“Now, we can sit here and you can stop fretting and stand down and be easy and not think, or we can sit here and you can think about what you want to do, or we can get some food, because everything’s better on a full stomach and it’s lunchtime.”

“I’m not hungry.”

Castle shrugs. “Okay.”  It was worth a try, and a single missed meal won’t hurt him.  Much.  He draws a little pattern on her arm.  “We can just stay here then.”  He smiles sleepily.  “Come here and be easy, Beckett.  Just take some time to think it through.”  He pulls her closer, and nuzzles her hair.  “I know what you need.  You just need some space.  Time to stop.  Time out.”  He nuzzles some more, easing around her as he does.  “We can have time out.”  He has an idea.  “Let’s play your game.  Think about that, and not think about anything else.”  He smirks.  “I’ll beat you, though.”

“You think?” Beckett’s voice is sharp.  Appealing to her competitive spirit has pulled her out of her slough of despond, he thinks. 

She sets up in quick time. Anything so that she doesn’t have to face going through her memories all over again.  The first time had been bad enough.  And if she plays, Castle’s strong arm will remain around her and his confident presence will still be here to keep her safe, and maybe it’ll be enough for now: enough to calm her down and ameliorate her corrosive fear that she’s damaged her father by saying too much and hurt where she should be helping. 

Castle calmed her father. In the most annoying possible fashion, but he made it believable.  For her father, at least.  Her dad believes that she’s fine.  Of course, he now also believes that she and Castle are having an affair, but… that’s a problem for another day.

What she does about it all… that’s a problem for later, too. For now, don’t think about it, Kate. Play the game, and concentrate on that.  Ignore the twisting that hasn’t left your gut since yesterday afternoon, and that you don’t want food because your stomach won’t keep it down.  Just… play the game.

Which game, of course, is an open question. Sorry is not the only game in town.  The game of regrets and apologies is also in play, though whose are to be made to whom is also an open question.  Still.  She needs to draw the cards, and let them take her where they may.

Beckett scrapes the first game, fuelled on most of a pot of coffee. Liquid, at least, seems to stay where it should.  Castle wins the second.  

“Third time’s the charm, Beckett.   Winner takes all.” 

“Last game, then.” The afternoon is slipping by, and it’s time to wrap this up.  Time, too, to face up to reality.  She needs to think.  She’s had her little space of time out.  She sets the board up once more, and when they begin finds that luck is not with her.  It seems like an omen.  Castle wins, again, without even needing to try hard. 

“There,” he says happily. “I win.”  Beckett is busily tidying the pieces and board away.  He catches her hands in their restless motion.  “Leave that a minute.”

She shakes her head. “No.  I need to put it away.”  There’s an odd tone in her voice, as if she means more than the game.  He drops his grip from her, and waits as she places it carefully on the lowest bookshelf.  She stays there, not returning to the couch but moving to the window, picking up her little stone bird from the side table and cradling it in her palm, stroking its head as if it were real.

Castle comes towards her, intent, focused and sure of himself, and draws her in, strong and smooth. “I won,” he says suavely, and takes her little bird from her, setting it down delicately on its table.  “I won, and I’m claiming my prize.”  He runs one hand into her hair and angles her head precisely.  “Traditionally, my prize is a kiss.”  He lowers his head to hers, slowly, giving her time to object.  She doesn’t.  When his lips touch hers she opens for him, and he kisses her deeply, firmly; holding her to him and perfectly certain of his aim.  His Beckett is broken, but maybe from the pieces he’ll recover both Kat and Beckett.

“You don’t need to decide anything now,” he murmurs, “but you need to think about what you want.” He kisses her again, slowly and decisively.  “I had the definite impression that you wanted me,” he whispers into her ear.

She’s instantly rigid, tense. “Is that the deal, then?  Fix myself because that’s the only way you’re going to stay?”

“No.” She relaxes back against him at the instant, reflexive denial: so fast that it could never be taken for a lie.  “I said I knew what I want and what I’m doing.”  He smirks evilly against her cheek.  “You.”  There’s a disgusted mutter.  He returns to serious.  “I don’t say I wouldn’t prefer that you weren’t unhappy or upset or overstressed, though.  But that’s up to you.”  He kisses the top of her head.  “I’m here, and you’re here, and that’s what matters right now.  Everything else can wait till you’re ready.  It’s all up to you, now.”