45. Threatened by shadows

“It’s not, though. There’s no choice.  Montgomery won’t let me back without knowing what’s wrong and what I’m doing about it, my dad’s asking questions and if I don’t have some sort of plan he’ll get upset and then he might… I can’t bear it if he does.  I can’t let that happen.”

Castle clasps her closer, and encourages her head to pillow itself on his wide shoulder. Then he smoothly walks them back to the couch and seats himself with Beckett still clasped in beside him.  After a while in which nothing is said and less done, she speaks again.

“First I went through it for real. Then I went through it in therapy, and Al-Anon.  Then I went through it when Dad got dry and was doing his twelve steps.   He worked so hard to get dry.”  She gulps in air.  “I couldn’t tell him I didn’t want to hear it again.  Not when he was so fragile.  I couldn’t let him fall again when I could hold him up.  They have to make amends, you know.”  He knows that, now.  “And he did.  How could I throw it back in his face?”  She’s drifting in unhappy memory.  Castle continues simply to hold her, and for once refrains from any comment at all except an encouraging hum.

“I couldn’t stand to remember it all. He doesn’t remember what he said, or did.  I wasn’t going to remind him.”  Frustration and furious grief lace her words, tumbling from her in a cataract of old pain and a mess of unhealed, bleeding wounds.  “What good would it do him to know that first he said don’t leave and then he told me he couldn’t stand to see me: he couldn’t bear it?  How does that help him?  He never meant it.”  The next breath is close to a sob.  “He never meant any of it.  So how could I reopen it?  I couldn’t let it happen again.”

Her father had said don’t leave?  Uh-oh.  Because she had.   She walked away.  Left.  And then he got sober and she’s never left him, or anyone else who’s asked for her help, ever again.  But, too, her father had said he couldn’t bear to see her.  At nineteen, maybe twenty, that’s going to cut deep, and the total contradiction means she would never be sure of the right path to follow.  And now, she’s making sure she never does anything that makes him not want to see her.  Such as – not at all at random – lose her temper with him.  Or indeed anywhere near him.  Or tell him anything that isn’t bright and cheerful.  Or reopen old wounds.  Or bring up old memories.

Or think that anyone else could really care for her.

“I could just work. No need to think about anything else, unless Dad called.”

And now her hard focus and intensity, why she wouldn’t accept his touch in Asher Washington’s apartment, the reasons she goes running back into the (or any) precinct when she’s upset, are also frighteningly clear.

“I couldn’t bear to be reminded, so I made sure when I came home nothing did. Only my bird.  So I could stop and not think and not worry.  Unless Dad called.”

Oh. No mementoes.  No personality.  Nothing that might be solid enough to fix on – and nothing that would need her to be strong, or focused, or give anyone anything.  Only soft vagueness and no demands.  No more need to care for anything or anyone than… than a cat.  Or a Kat.

Kat is suddenly totally clear.  Semi-schizophrenic, and terrifying, but totally clear.  He cossets her in, and still says nothing.  Anything he says now will likely be wrong, in some way he won’t understand till it’s all too late and they’re ripping each other apart with lacerating words again.  If he’d known this before Christmas, maybe… Well.  Maybes don’t mean anything, and any regrets are a waste of time now. 

No wonder, too, why she’d thought she could push him away so easily. She thought she’d abandoned her father… but before that, her father had not just abandoned her but effectively told her he couldn’t bear her.  So of course she thought that all she’d have to do was show him her true feelings for him to run as fast as he could in the other direction.  After all, her own father had, without even knowing how she felt, and if he could, everyone else should.  His arms tighten around her without conscious input, instinctively wanting to provide the strength that she hasn’t been able to lean on from her own family.

She’s drawn into herself, tight-wound and cramped, leaning away at any opportunity until he brings her back: knots in her shoulders and misery written on her face.

“Come here,” he says softly. “Come here, and forget for a little while.  Sure it’s all up to you, but you’ve got all evening, and all tomorrow, and plenty of time to think about what you want.”

“What I want?” she says bitterly.  “I wanted my dad not to be stuck down a bottle.  I wanted not to be pulling him out the pit.  I wanted to have Christmases that weren’t all either spoilt or wracked with memories of how they were spoilt.  Mulled wine vomit.  Meals drunk not eaten.  Ruined presents.  Being told I wasn’t her.  Nothing I could do could ever make it better.  At least on Christmas shift I could be making something better for someone, even if it wasn’t what I wanted.”

Castle manages not to wince.

Beckett wrenches herself away and stands up. “Two years in,” she spits out acidly, “I wanted it all to be over.  Just so I’d never hear him again, begging drunkenly for me to save him, and in the next breath blaming me for being so like her that all he could do was blot it out.”  Her fists are clenched.  “So tell me, family man, when do you stop being part of a family?  When’s it okay to decide you don’t have one any more?  Because that’s what doing what I want would mean.  He saved himself and wanted to be a family again.  He needed me.  So don’t tell me I can have what I want.  I can’t.  That was all lost ten years ago.” 

She turns away from him. “You don’t get it.  You’ve never had to.  If you’re lucky, you never will have to.  You make your choices and then you have to live with them.”

“Yeah,” Castle says heavily, though he doesn’t mean agreement by it. “But… things change, Beckett.   Matters move on.  Maybe there are more choices now than there used to be.”

Her shoulders hunch. “There are no choices.  Keep him sober or watch him die.  Those are the choices.  I can’t have what I want because he took it all away from me.  He can be happy and think he’s got a family because he doesn’t remember any of it.”  Her voice spikes.  “I can’t deal with anyone’s happy family because he ruined ours.”  Castle is already on his feet and moving fast to her as she realises what she said.  “I didn’t mean that,” she sobs.  “It wasn’t his fault.”  Castle cradles her against his shoulder and clasps her tightly: his body hard about her and his hands strong, enveloping her.

Truth hurts. Truth is currently being sobbed out into his chest.  Because she had meant it, and she knows it, and this might be the first time she’s ever admitted it. 

“It wasn’t your fault either.”

“But I’m the one who has to deal with it.”

“Beckett… it wasn’t your dad who couldn’t deal with Julia. It’s not your dad who can’t deal with family.  It’s you.  You’re not dealing with it any more.”  He stops her pulling away.  “I can make you happy, but – you know, it’s very disappointing, because I specialise in making people happy – you don’t stay happy.  So short of keeping you in bed all the time… which I really wouldn’t mind because we’d both be very happy – maybe it’s time to try and find a way round it?”  He deliberately makes his voice a little frivolous, a little teasing; but under that the point is iron hard. 

She stays still against him.

“You can’t go on like this. Eventually, you’ll crash.”

There’s a sobbed, indrawn breath, and another, more serious, attempt to pull away. This time, again, Castle doesn’t let her go.  The indistinct noises against his chest might, with a little imagination, become something like Lanie said that.

“Lanie said it, Montgomery said it, I’ve said it. Even your dad said it – didn’t he?  If everyone’s telling you you’re crashing, isn’t it time to change course?” 

He tows her back to sitting down, never letting go of her. The dam’s broken and the floods have come; and the fortress of her control is washed away.  She’s diminished and broken, and for a moment he’s furious and disgusted that her father’s conduct and weakness has made her so: has ruined the life she should have had.  But that won’t help now, and it’s not to Castle that her father has made, or may make, his amends.  It’s not for Castle to judge Jim Beckett. 

It’s not for Castle to judge anyone who’s been part of this mess. He’s never been there, and God willing he never will be.  He can see clearly now how everything has always been part of the whole.  Family is just a burden to be borne, always hiding the real issues – stay away from families.  Other people only want you when you’re strong – never reveal weakness.  Don’t reveal your feelings, don’t explain, and don’t ever talk about anything difficult, or confrontational, or that might cause disagreements.  Don’t let anyone close.  They’ll only let you down.   Love is conditional and readily withdrawn – don’t fall in love, don’t even look for it.  All of it’s a weakness, and everyone needs you to be strong.

And if someone will give you momentary ease – take a little love where you can, because it won’t be there as soon as they discover who you really are, and what you really think. So don’t tell them.  Or, because despite everything your integrity is iron hard and ice cold – tell them who you think you are and watch them run.   Or never let them close enough to need to know.

Don’t, in fact, let anyone know anything.

But now she’s going to have to, or lose everything, and that must be terrifying. One way or the other, she’s going to have to tear herself apart and stick herself back together.  The only question is – will she take the hard choice to build herself up or will she take the easier route, give up and stay in her empty, joyless life?  She’s always made the hard choice before…

Maybe she’s tired of the hard choice. Maybe she’s tired of the battle.  Maybe she’s simply tired.  But he can’t bear the thought that she might not fight for them, for everything they might be.  He shivers, because she hasn’t fought for them much to date – rather the reverse.  She’s done everything possible to push them apart, most of the time, and then it’s been resigned acceptance and flat statements that he’ll leave when he realises she’ll never be enough: bitter comments about her own inadequacy.

Oh. Why fight for a relationship that you want (he hopes she wants it) when that doesn’t get you it.  Fighting for her father failed.  Walking away – in the end, succeeded.  It’s not even playing hard to get.  It’s… another learned response.  She’d walked away from Julia Berowitz, too, in the end.   She’s had to walk away from everything she wanted.  So, however inadvertently, in the end going after her had been the only thing that would work.  But it isn’t working, now.

But… she might still walk away from everything. She might still walk away from being a cop, she might still walk away from him, she might still walk away. She’s so tired.  She’s so tired of everything, and she still won’t lean on him unless he brings her in and makes her do so, because she still doesn’t believe that she won’t have to prop him up just like everyone else around her. 

And, of course, she’s flat out said that she isn’t enough. To him, to her father.

He holds her close, and waits. He’s said and done enough, and more will be counter-productive.  He’ll simply keep her tight-clasped in his arms, and be that still point of stability around which she can spin: the axis of her world.

Time passes, and with each sad, silent minute Castle becomes ever more convinced that Beckett will simply give up. He’s fairly sure she no longer knows or cares that he is there: she isn’t leaning on him, she isn’t curling in, or away.  She’s static, barely breathing, and, most frighteningly, her eyes are dry and empty.  She should be crying.  She should be upset by the choice before her.

But of course, crying didn’t help. So she doesn’t cry, doesn’t show upset.  Doesn’t show anything.

She’s so very, very good at not showing anything.

Just before he’s about to consider giving up on waiting for her to take the final step; just before he’s about to consider leaving: anything to break this fatal spell where she doesn’t seem able to reach out to anyone and he can’t reach her; just before he has to take the nuclear step and walk away, as she had done: last resort to show her that she’s hit bottom – she comes out of her stasis.

“I don’t want to,” she says emptily. “I don’t want to do this all over again.  I shouldn’t have to.”  She stops.  Castle’s gut twists.

“But I can only save myself,” she says, and bursts into tears.

Castle is no stranger to comforting crying women, or, more often, daughters. He is almost a complete stranger to comforting a hopelessly sobbing Beckett.  The only other time she’d been crying, she’d tried to hide it, and shut it down.  This time she’s doing neither.  He applies the same basic principles as he would do for any weeping female, (well, not really.  There are some significant differences in approach and attitude) firmly lifts Beckett into his lap and embrace, pillows her head into the space between muscled shoulder and neck, and pets her hair undemandingly.  Eventually words make themselves faintly distinguishable through the tears.

“I have to do it,” she sobs desolately. “All over again.  It’s not fair.”  In her voice and words is the note of the devastated teen, still grieving for her mother’s loss as the next disaster overwhelmed her, not the voice of the confident adult.  “Everybody needs me to do something.”  Castle cossets her, and says nothing.  “I need to do something.”  She rasps in a breath.  “I don’t want to do anything.  Why’s it me who needs to do anything?”  She stops, and breathes again.  It sounds defeated.  “But I have to.”

She slumps, not so much in body, which is already bent as if broken, but in spirit; then tries to pull away again. “Let go,” she says dully.  “I need to think.”

“Nope,” Castle says, cheerfully contradictory and completely resistant. “Stay right here.”

“I don’t w…”

“Don’t tell fibs, Beckett. You do want to.  You just want to be eased.  You don’t have to do anything, here with me.”

“I need to think.”

“No, you don’t. You need to stop.  Don’t think, for a while.”   He colours, unseen.  “Trust your feelings, not your brains.”  Trust that I can give you this, whenever you need it. Trust in me.  Stay with me.  “You know you’re safe for now.” Safe in your Castle. He continues stroking her hair, a little less softly, a little more assertion that she should simply stand down and follow his lead.  There will be nothing more than affection, for now.

He has a sudden thought. “All you’ve ever needed to do with me is say yes or no.  All you need to do about this is say yes or no to seeing someone who can help.  That’s all.  Just yes or no: one decision, and then you don’t need to decide anything more.  You can just stay right here with me and be eased, whatever you decide.”

One decision? Only one, simple, decision?  Yes or no.  No need to decide anything more.  Just stay right here in his arms and forget: let him be stronger than she, let him support her.   He’s not asking her to do anything, or be anything, she realises, he’s only asking her to decide whether to let someone else help.  That doesn’t force her to be anything at all.  It may, however, mean that she will have to talk.  But not to someone who can be hurt, or upset, or filter it through their own assumptions.  To someone who doesn’t care.

That, she slowly works out, means someone who won’t know and won’t care whether she’s weak or strong, who won’t pity her, who won’t use it against her or make it public or ever think about it again. Maybe…maybe it would all go away?  She curls up into herself.  She’s never made it go away.  No matter how hard she tried, how much therapy she’d had, how hard she worked, how quiet and unmemorable her apartment, how much her father told her she’d saved him.

She’s never believed that. He saved himself.  She had nothing to do with it.  She could only save herself.

Except she didn’t.

If everyone around you thinks you’re crashing… maybe you already did, and just hid it. Maybe you crashed long ago, and never…noticed.  Maybe you’re…broken.  Never stuck yourself back together.  Just held the fragments together because you put yourself under so much pressure they couldn’t fly apart.

And then Castle came along and let her stop. Let her stand down, lifted the pressure outside that stopped the pressures inside exploding her.  So it all came crashing to a stop.  She’s come crashing to a stop.  No precinct to keep her together – none of the pressure that she chose to deal with the pressure that she didn’t choose.

She’s always been the best, the fastest, the strongest. And none of it has helped.  The man who’s surrounding her now, though… a restful evening in a quaint shop, soft fingers against crippling headache, a silly game, strong arms and a firm body, and the ability that no-one else has ever had to let her be soft, stood down Kat.  To cosset her and protect her and cherish her.  She only needs to let him.  He’s made it clear that he can; he’s made it clear that he will. 

But here and now, just for once, it’s all up to her. Castle isn’t pushing.  He isn’t trying to get what he wants, though it’s clear what he wants.  It’s entirely in her hands.  Live, or exist.  Forward, or static. 

Love, or guilt.

Yes, or no.

“Yes.”