111. Butterflies are free to fly

Beckett had wanted Castle to come home with her very badly, but she has to think and Castle is not conducive to thinking. Not when she’s upset, anyway. His physical presence is simply too much for her, and the still-overwhelming reactions to him mean that all that would happen is that they’d end up, if not in bed, certainly in a state of non-thought. She can’t keep letting herself drown all the complications in sex. Love or not, that won’t help.

So, Kate, think. Start by thinking about what you want.

What does Kate Beckett want? She lays her pen down and stares out of the window. Easy things first. She wants Castle. Scratch that. She is in love with Rick Castle. She wants to be able to have a proper relationship where they go to each other’s homes and like each other’s family and don’t keep falling over her problems with all of that. Easy to say, at least. So what does she need to do to get there?

She stares unfocusedly out the window some more, into the early twilight. Gradually she faces up to the main problem: her relationship – or not – with her father.   For ten years, theirs has been a relationship based on lies and built with guilt bricks. His alcoholism, her guilt firstly that she couldn’t save him and then that she’d walked away. His guilt that he’d fallen, her resentment – never spoken – that he had. Her lies, based on what she’d been told was a need to grow up and get over it, to try and fill the gap. She’d wanted him to love her, and so she’d hidden the truth of what he’d said and done from him, and hoped that it was enough for him to forgive her, just as he’d hoped that she would forgive him.

All that that had left them was that neither of them could ever really have forgiven – each other, or themselves. Because there is no forgiveness without the truth. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. No truth, no freedom. No truth, no forgiveness.

No forgiveness, no freedom.

With the thought, comes that same feeling of realisation as when she solves her most complex cases: followed by relief, understanding, and to some extent a weight being lifted. She’s never been happy, because she’s never been free. Never forgiven her father for falling, nor herself for failing him.

Which leads to the other key question: does she believe her father wants a relationship that isn’t based on her running when he calls; isn’t grounded in her misconception that he needs her to stay sober?

That’s much harder.

That goes back to the whole core of this problem, the polluted mess that the clean air of the Hamptons couldn’t clear up: whether her father lied when drunk, lied when sober; whether he knew or didn’t know what he had said; what he had meant by just like family. He’d said she’d misunderstood… but he himself didn’t know why he’d told her to go or begged her to stay; didn’t know what he meant drunk or sober. How, then, should she?

And yet… and yet she sees his face on Friday: white and weeping and sunken in pain. If it had been a witness, or a suspect… what then would she have thought? And yet… the evidence had all been one way. The only counterweight is his own word, and that’s contradictory.

Which brings her right back round to Castle’s suggestion. Castle’s views of her dad, and Dr Burke’s views of her dad. Tomorrow. But this time, the session in the light of forgiving – if not her father, understand enough to try to forgive herself.

It’s full dark, now, only the small circle of light from her desk lamp to see by; and it’s late. Time to sleep. She’s done enough, for today.

By nine a.m. Belvez’s Social Security number has paid some belated dividends. He was working in a pharmacy on Clinton. Interestingly, his major had been chemistry, back in New Mexico State University – and hmmmm, what has she here? – he’d done a post-grad in it too, and he’s been part of a research group there. Mmmm. So why on earth is someone with some serious smarts and qualifications selling pills in the front of a pharmacy? He doesn’t even have a pharmacy minor.   Beckett’s well-developed antennae for the weird and complicated are not so much twitching as whipping. She chews the end of her pen and ponders.

Pondering is not improved by the dearth of information. She quits pondering in favour of caffeinating, and makes herself a coffee. Fortunately, before it’s finished Lanie’s report pops up in her e-mail.

Now this is truly weird. Their boy Belvez had indeed been suffocated with carbon monoxide. However, there are no soot particles, and no other gases. It looks, says Lanie’s report, as if it was pure carbon monoxide. Not a contaminant in sight. Or in spectroscopy, for that matter. Where on earth do you…

“In a lab!” Beckett says out loud.

“What?” says Castle.

Beckett drops her pen.   Castle does not drop the coffee or the pastries – just.

“He was suffocated with pure carbon monoxide. It must have come from a lab.”

“Or a supplier who supplies labs,” Castle offers up.

“Yeah, that too. Okay. Ryan!”

“Yo?”

“What’ve you got with cameras?”

“Not a lot. Nothing useful anywhere.”

“Okay. Move on to running all the possible suppliers of gases to labs. We’re looking for carbon monoxide suppliers.”

She thinks for a moment. “You know, NYU isn’t very far from Rivington… How could I have missed that? We should have asked John if he recognised Belvez. Might have seen him around. Espo?”

“Yo?”

“As well as gas suppliers see if you can get camera footage round the NYU at Silver Center, Washington Square.”

“On it.”

“Castle, let’s go visit your pal again. With a photo.”

But when they get into the car there’s a surprising pause. The key is in the ignition, but Beckett doesn’t turn it. She isn’t looking at Castle, either.

“I couldn’t forgive him,” she blurts out. “And then I couldn’t forgive me either.” Castle puts a hand on her knee and then a Kleenex in her hand, and then regardless of being parked only fifty yards or so from the front of the precinct puts an arm around her and pulls her head on to his shoulder.

“How do I know if he lied or not? Everything goes back to that. I can’t get past it. I can’t forgive anything if I don’t know what I’m forgiving.” She stops and pulls back into the driver’s seat. “I shouldn’t be thinking about this now. I need to concentrate. There’s a corpse out there who shouldn’t be dead.”

“A few moments won’t make much difference, Beckett. It’ll take that long if the lights are red instead of green.” He pats her knee. “Take a breath. I’m here.” Her hand fumbles for his as she struggles for composure, and she grips hard. He folds thick fingers over her slim ones and doesn’t let go till her grasp loosens and her breathing is calm again. The moment passes as if it had never been.

The car starts, the traffic is no worse than normal, and most of the lights are green. Beckett’s momentary melting has, by the time they’ve circled twice to find a parking space, made no difference at all to anything, especially as John is giving a lecture and won’t be available for another fifteen minutes. Beckett carries Castle off to the nearest supplier of more hot caffeine and they return just as class is dismissed.

“Rick?” John queries from behind his lectern, and emerges. “I was going to call you.”

“Oh?” Beckett says. “What have you got?”

“Come round to my office. They’ll want the hall for the next lecture.” And indeed students are already spilling in from the top of the theatre.

John’s office is full of paper, computers, and models. He looks faux-sternly at Castle. “Rick, this time do you think you could not play with the models? They’re not toys.” Castle humphs.

“You said you were going to call?” Beckett prompts.

“Yes. These papers… this is a version of a chemical” – it’s very obvious that John is massively simplifying – “which we’ve been developing. We’re hoping that it’ll be useful for optoelectronics.”

“What’s that?”

“Um – one of the uses could be better fibre optics.”

“Okay. So?”

“Well, this is pretty advanced stuff, and I wouldn’t expect it just to be lying around.”

“John, this is our guy.” Beckett produces a photo of him that was taken before he was suffocated – taken from the driver’s licence. No point upsetting Castle’s pal with the ugly truth of death.

“Ricky?”

“Yes?”

“No, not you, Rick. This is Ricky. Ricky Belvez. I interviewed him to join our group a couple of months ago, to start in a week or two. He really knew his stuff.”

“Why would he be working in a pharmacy on Clinton?”

“What? I have no idea. He was here? I thought he was finishing up his last project. I just needed the funding to come through so he could start.”

“Funding?”

“Research grant. This one’s funded by Verizon.”

“Who else is in the group? Anyone who might have been a bit put out that a new guy’s joining?”

John thinks about it. “Not really. But Ricky had a reputation already. His papers were getting cited a bit more than a post-grad might. I was hoping that catching him would help us on the funding side.” He looks grieved. “Now he’s dead? What a waste. He was shaping up to be brilliant.”

“Was there anyone you knew about that knew him well?” Castle asks. “Girlfriend, family, anything?”

“Not that I knew. If he’d only started here, I’d be able to tell you.”

“Okay,” Beckett says sympathetically. “I’m afraid we’ll have to talk to all of your group. Can you give us the details?”

John produces all the details without a fuss. Beckett doesn’t point out that this is unusually co-operative and that normally the university bureaucracy would forbid it. Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

“Thank you. If there’s anything else, just let me know.”

Back at the bullpen, they run background on each of John’s research group for the rest of the day. Phone records have shown many calls to two numbers, but all Espo’s efforts haven’t managed to extract the owner of the number yet. Footage is inconclusive.

“Why wasn’t there a computer?”

“Huh?”

“Why didn’t he have a computer?” Castle repeats. “Everyone’s got a laptop or an i-Pad. Where was his?”

“I don’t remember seeing one.” Beckett gets on to CSU. They hadn’t found a computer or laptop either. “Maybe he took it around with him?”

“If John thought he wasn’t finished at New Mexico, maybe they know something?”

“Okay, let’s put out a request.”

At shift end the request has not been answered, background on the other chemists is being gathered, and the absence of a laptop is still a mystery. Montgomery repeats yesterday’s meaningful stare, but on seeing Beckett already packing up pulls himself back into his office in the manner of a cautious tortoise.

Castle watches Beckett tidy up her desk for the morning and notes the tiny tremblings of her fingertips. She’s not exactly happy. This is not exactly surprising. She hasn’t been happy with therapy since the day it began.

“Time to go,” she says.

“How’d you get to leave already?” Ryan mutters.

“Orders. Montgomery doesn’t like it when I’m sick. No-one to keep an eye on you two.” Both detectives regard her blackly. “Night, all.” She disappears before they can think of a riposte. Castle collects his coat in no particular hurry and ambles after her, catching up at the elevator.

“Ready?”

“No. But I don’t have any choice.”

Castle doesn’t hesitate to sit firmly next to Beckett and, not apologetically at all, keep a hand on hers. Dr Burke looks smoothly back at both of them and is entirely unfazed.

“Good evening.”

“Hey.”

“Hello.”

“Where would you like to begin, Detective Beckett?”

“We – Castle – had an idea. About my father. I don’t know if he’s lying about all of it or none of it or something in between,” she blurts out in one breath. Dr Burke observes her knuckles gleaming white where they are clutching Mr Castle’s hand.

“Why does that matter to you?” he asks.

“He… I…” she stops, and regroups. Mr Castle strokes his thumb over her fingers, still gripping. “I need to know the truth. If I don’t know the truth I don’t know what he meant. You both know what I think and you know what he said Friday, but I don’t know what he’s said to you. You need to say. Castle needs to say and you need to say and then we work out what was true. Or not true,” she finishes bleakly.

“And how do you consider that will this help you?”

Detective Beckett winces, and swallows. “If I know the truth, I can… I can forgive myself,” she rushes out.

Dr Burke remains impassive, externally. Internally, he rejoices.

“I see. For what do you think you need forgiveness? You have supported your father far beyond the point when most would have believed he no longer required it.”

Detective Beckett looks at him, nonplussed.

“Uh?”

“For what do you need forgiven? More to the point, why do you still believe that you acted wrongly? There was no shame in walking away. You did not cause your father’s disease, you could not control it and you could not cure it. In those circumstances, the only option is to leave.” Dr Burke pauses, to let that sink in. “Your father’s decisions are for your father’s account, not yours. Now, why do you think you need to know the truth of his feelings to forgive yourself? You do not need his validation. Your feelings are your own, and you have a right to have them just as you have the responsibility to own them. Forgiveness will come from yourself, not from your father’s words or deeds.”

Detective Beckett does not appear to have contemplated that possibility. Mr Castle, on the other hand, has a very strange look on his face. He appears to have undergone an epiphany. Dr Burke would very much like to know what Mr Castle is thinking, but telepathy is, regrettably, a myth. It would make the psychiatrist’s life so much easier.

“It’s not his validation,” Detective Beckett denies. “It’s mine. I need to know the truth. If I don’t, I’ll never believe the answers. They’ll just be stupid theories with nothing to back them.”

“In fact, you need evidence. You need a reason for his behaviour, so that you can understand it. Only once you understand will you be able to move on.”

“Yes. What you said. That’s all I need.”

“Really?” Dr Burke asks pointedly. “How do you feel about your statements to your father on Friday?” He observes Mr Castle’s wince. More pertinently, he observes Detective Beckett’s wince, her face contorting, and Mr Castle’s murmur in her ear. Dr Burke suspects that it contains the words just tell him.

“I never meant to say it. He’s never going to forgive me.” She dissolves into misery. Mr Castle puts an arm round her and glares at Dr Burke, who looks coolly back at him.

“So, in fact, you also want his forgiveness. Even if rationally you know that you do not need it, emotionally you are still looking for it.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want or look for. I won’t get it. Now he knows I didn’t tell him the truth then, and he couldn’t stand hearing it anyway. He wanted something different, and I can’t keep being something different. I don’t know if he’s messing with my head so I go running back or if he really means it and he never meant it to be like that.”

“So you need the truth to establish how you should deal with your relationship with your father. Whether, in fact, you should make any effort to preserve a relationship at all. It is not necessary to have a relationship if that will damage you. It is merely necessary to understand the reasons for your choice.”

Dr Burke steeples his fingers. “So, Detective Beckett, in order to make your choice and understand your reasons, you require the evidence that will assist you. Now that we have established that, let us begin. With whom do you wish to start?”

Detective Beckett regards him damply, and then with more intensity, before she turns to Mr Castle, who looks less than happy at the change. “Castle. You start. Right from the beginning.” She acquires a slight edge. “I never did hear how my father started talking to you.”

“Er-um” – the stare takes on a cut-glass edge – “After the first time I met him – erm – at yours, I went to talk to him. I told you all about it.” She nods, after a moment. “I thought he was pretty tough.   He certainly faced me down. I still don’t know” – Mr Castle sounds vaguely indignant – “how he managed to manipulate that dinner invitation out of me. Anyway. After you walked out of Julia Berowitz’s, he told her that she should listen to you. But he acts just like you when you’re upset: he just closed himself off. The only difference was he went to see his sponsor, and you just…” he stops.

“Leave.” she says bitterly. “Just like always. Go away. Leave it behind till I can cope.”

Mr Castle does not say anything to that. Dr Burke thinks that this displays some considerable wisdom.

“Anyway,” he says firmly, and to Dr Burke’s surprise Detective Beckett eases slightly. Surprise is muted when he notices Mr Castle’s hand stroking over her fingers again, in the manner of gentling a very shy deer. Ah. Another facet of physical consolation.

“After Julia” – Dr Burke thinks that that sounds like a poorly written romance novel, and is hard-pressed to conceal his inappropriate momentary amusement – “your dad called me. He said” – Mr Castle looks back into memory for, Dr Burke thinks, the precise words – “she’s always been more than enough. She could never let me down. I’m her dad. He sounded scared that you were upset.”

“Scared?” Detective Beckett whispers, as if she doesn’t believe it.

“Scared. Then he called before I came to yours for that gorgeous dinner and please will you cook it again because the food was so good” –

“Castle!” Mr Castle rapidly refocuses to the point under a sharp and, it would appear, extremely familiar tone of irritation.

“to ask if you were okay and try and get me to tell him what was going on and he was worried, Kate” – Dr Burke blinks at the use of her first name – “and he wanted to help you.”

Mr Castle pauses, and takes what looks, to Dr Burke’s extremely experienced eyes, to be a very nervous breath.

“And then it all went to hell after the Hamptons. So I phoned him.”

“You did what?”